Unparalleled Ayakashi Incident
by Xavic
Summary: A centuries-old evil is stirring, and Yukari is worried about the poison it's beginning to spread. When a teenager with no memory is thrust onto the front lines, how will he fight it? Self-insert. Starts unrelated, then picks up speed. Nitori/OC.
1. Chapter 1: Brought Within Boundaries

Author's Note: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

Chapter 1: Brought Within Boundaries

"Why in the world did you bring him here?"

A little… personal experiment."

"Oh, that's _so_ like you!"

"Is he dead? Poke him with your horn!"

No sooner did I hear that when I felt a sharp jab in my arm.

"Ow!"

"Yay, he's alive!" It was a young girl. Not very old. Maybe about nine years old, give or take a year.

"Of course he is," said someone else. An older woman. Late twenties, maybe early thirties. "I made sure he didn't die as I brought him here."

"You wouldn't be able to tell, he's so banged up." Teenager. About my age, most likely. Who are these girls anyways?

I tried opening my eyes. My vision was extremely blurry. Like I had just woken up from a really deep sleep.

"Look, he's coming around!" Another teenager, but maybe a couple years older than the other one.

I groaned softly, trying to move my arms. It was difficult, like trying to move through thick quicksand. My mouth was dry.

"We should give him something to drink," the younger teenager said.

"Oh, oh! I know what to give him!" The little girl.

"No!" The teenager again. "Don't even think about doing that! Just get some water from the shrine."

There was a pitter-patter of steps as the little girl ran off. A shrine, she said? So some kind of Eastern location? Maybe.

I managed to rub my eyes, and my vision cleared somewhat. The sky was almost empty, a single cloud drifting lazily across the sky. The floor beneath me was hard and cold. Stone? I wasn't sure.

I groaned again, louder this time. I felt a little sick, and everything felt sore: legs, arms, chest, everything. It felt like I was put through a workout marathon and then sent to run the actual thing. And my head… Argh, it hurt!

"Yukari-san did you call-"

"Yes. She should be on her way," the older woman said.

Wait. Yukari was a Japanese name, and _san_ was an honorific term. So maybe I _was_ in some Eastern place? But if I was, how come I could understand them? Gah, this was only making my headache worse….

"In fact, I actually called her before even bringing him here, telling her to prepare a special serum for healing bodily damage and mid-level migraines, so she should be here in exactly 11.6483 seconds."

That accurate? No way. One… Two…

A pitter-patter of steps coming back. The little girl. "I got the water!" she said. Now that I think about it, did she sound drunk? Or was it all in my head?

"Great. Just pour it down in his mouth."

"Alright! Drink up!"

Five… Six… I felt the mouth of a wooden bottle on my lips. A slow stream of cool water trickled down my throat. Oh, sweet water!

"And now for a little added extra!" Suddenly, the bottle was taken away, and the mouth of another was shoved into my mouth.

Ow! Burn, burn! What the hell was that! I choked and sputtered, spitting as much of the liquid out as I could. Several drops still managed to slither down my throat.

"Suika-chan, why in the world did you do that?" The teenager cried out.

"What?" the girl asked, whose name was Suika. "He needed a pick-me-up, right?"

"Not with sake!"

Great. I had just drunk a few drops of sake. I wasn't even legal age yet. Ten… Eleven…

"Yukari-san, you called me here?" Another woman. Late thirties maybe. That was exactly 11.6483 seconds? Damn, I was impressed.

"Ah, Eirin, you're here. You have the serum I requested?"

"Yes. This should fix him right up."

"Well, then give it to him!" The teenager said.

There was a light squeak of a stopper being pulled. A sweet, lilting smell tickled my nose, and I felt glass on my lips. The "serum" was like sweetened honey crawling down my throat.

Suddenly, a soothing sensation washed over my whole body. Then, in less than a second, my skin began to crawl, and my headache began to recede. I sighed. Such relief!

"Wow, you really know your stuff, Eirin-san." The older teenager. Did she sound drunk too?

"Of course," Eirin said proudly. "Making something like this is actually extremely simple for someone like me."

It may have been simple (even though it probably wasn't), but it sure was effective. My vision was clearing up for good this time. I opened my eyes fully, and my body no longer felt sore. But the sky was no longer clear. There were shadows…

Oh, wait, never mind, those were just the girls from earlier, all leaning down over me. Two of them had what looked like horns.

Wait. Horns?

I sprang up. Perhaps a little too quickly, because the front of my skull suddenly throbbed a bit. A light breeze played with my hair. A large, somewhat rundown building sat at the end of a stone path. The shrine?

"Yay, he's awake!"

I turned to the sound to see a small, orange-haired girl jumping for joy. She was wearing an old, tattered shirt with the sleeves ripped off and a decorative dress. Despite the shackles and chains dangling off her wrists, and the two horns protruding from under her hair, she could have passed off as a pretty normal ten year old. Her name was… Suika, right?

"Yahoo!" Another girl jumped into view and started dancing with her. She looked considerably older, with a single horn coming from her forehead underneath blonde hair. A plate is somehow balanced precariously right on the tip. Her shirt could have come from a Japanese P.E. uniform (at least if it was stereotypical), and she wore her own decorative dress and chains.

"Uh…." I wasn't sure how I was supposed to react. But they _did_ look drunk.

"Don't worry too much about them."

I turned to the voice. The girl kneeling was more… normal, I guess? She didn't have horns at least. She was wearing a bright red vest and dress with white trim, a yellow ribbon, and her black hair was done up with a large, matching bow. Her white sleeves were detached, and I managed to notice a strange bandage wrapped over her chest under the vest. The peculiarities struck me as familiar, and I realized she was a shrine maiden.

"Are you sure about that, uh… miko-chan?"

She cocked her head and smiled. "So you know I'm a shrine maiden? Interesting. Well, I'm Reimu. Reimu Hakurei." She extended a hand to me.

I quickly readjusted to a respectful kneeling position as well, and returned the handshake. "A pleasure to meet you, Reimu-chan."

She giggled a little. "A pleasure to meet you too."

"Hehe, thanks." I looked around, and immediately noticed that, besides the many trees of a forest and the shrine, there was almost nothing around.

"Well, now that that's done, I really must get back to Eientei," said the woman named Eirin. Her braided silvery hair was easily thigh length, and on her head was a red-blue hat that would be seen stereotypically as a nurse cap. Her dress was matching in color, and had a design printed along the bottom hem. "After all, Lady Kaguya-sama really is useless without me. And I'm expecting Alice-sama to arrive soon, as she usually does."

A loud yawn drew my attention away. "I should get back home too," said Yukari. Her blonde hair was topped with a white mob cap, and she was adorned with a white dress with a purple design racing down the front. A similar symbol to Eirin's was stitched around the middle. "Ran is in a panic without me around."

Both of them waved goodbye.

Then something amazing happened.

Eirin turned and jumped, and started flying! Within seconds, she was out of earshot and out of sight. Yukari managed to pull something even stranger: she fell backwards. Before I realized it and tried to stop her, a big… hole… opened up beneath her and sucked her in. Just before it closed, I thought I saw a huge eye gaping out of it.

For a moment, I heard nothing more than Suika and her friend laughing and partying. The scene I just witnessed was….

I turned and asked, "Reimu-chan… Where in the world am I?"

She didn't look fazed at all. Like this was a regular occurrence, somehow.

"You're in the land of Gensokyo."


	2. Chapter 2: The Wind God's Girl

Author's Note: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

**Chapter 2: The Wind God's Girl**

_It was nice of Reimu to let me stay at her shrine._ I thought as I stretched out on the bed in one of the many rooms of the Hakurei shrine. She could have accommodated another ten people, maybe, but she explained that not many visitors came by during the year.

"A lot of them say that the shrine looks rundown," Reimu said poutily. "So hardly anyone shows up, and the ones that do come by often don't give any donations."

"Doesn't that mean that the shrine will stay rundown until more visitors come by for donations towards its upkeep?" I pointed out.

"Exactly! But no one ever listens to me!"

_It must really suck having a self-answered question hanging over your head like that._

I sighed and rose to open to the window. It was afternoon, the sun lightly touching the tips of the trees. It wasn't much of a view, but I appreciated it all the same. After all, it wasn't every day you got to witness a person flying and another opening up a… portal, I guess… and then closing it like it never existed at all.

Nor was it every day anyone ever got to say an understatement of that caliber.

What kind of place did I just land myself into? Reimu had just said Gensokyo, but that was it. I didn't have the slightest idea what or where Gensokyo was at all.

Even worse, I felt like my memory was malfunctioning or something. I couldn't remember a single thing from my past, and anything I tried to remember at all simply came up blank. Friends, family, home, nothing! It simply wouldn't come. No matter how hard I tried, I would only get a headache.

"What's your name?" Reimu had asked.

"Uh…." I tried my best to remember, but I just couldn't, and the more I tried, the bigger my headache grew.

"You… do have a name, right?" Reimu looked at me oddly.

"Of course he does!" An arm threw itself over my shoulder as Suika latched herself onto me. Now that I got a closer look, her face was quite red. "I mean, I have a name, you have a name, Yuugi-sama's got a name, we all have names! If you don't have a name, then you're just plain weird!"

She brought a big purple gourd up to her lips and took several large gulps. Once she finished, I noticed that her face flushed an even deeper shade of red.

"Um…." I looked at the gourd apprehensively. "Is that… sake in that gourd?"

"Yup! Best stuff around!" She offered the drink. "You want some?"

"No thank you," I refused as politely as possible. I wasn't keen to feeling sake in my mouth a second time. "Please, just keep it for yourself."

Her eyes brightened. "Oh you're too kind!" Suika said as she took another long draught.

"So…" She turned on me again once she finished, this time with a glitter in her eye. "What's your name?"

"I… I'm not sure." I had no idea how else to answer her.

"You don't have a name? You're a weird one."

"Um, you look like a nine-year-old with horns that drinks sake."

"Hey, I'm a lot older than nine year old, you know!" she said indignantly.

_Is that even the real problem here?_ I thought.

"Uh, hey Suika-chan?" Reimu chimed in. "Would you mind taking Yuugi-sama inside? She fell asleep on the road again."

I turned around, and sure enough, there she was, lying on the floor, drooling. Her plate was overturned, and a liquid was seeping out of its edges. I was pretty sure I knew what it was.

"Alright, alright." Her arm left my shoulder, and I suddenly realized that I had hardly felt her weight at all. Geez, what else was going to happen?

Suika went over, picked up Yuugi with one arm, and slung her over one shoulder. My jaw immediately dropped. It looked like I just tempted fate right then.

She turned to look at me and winked. "See you later, Nanashi. If you ever want a drink, just give me a call."

I felt embarrassed at having that said to me by someone that looks like a nine-year-old. "Uh, sure, thanks Suika-chan. Will do."

Once she got inside, I started breathing again. "Will she be fine by morning?" I asked Reimu.

"If you mean fine as in sober," she responded, "Then no, she'll never be fine."

"Wait! She's never sober?"

"Nope." A borderline smile entered her features. "Neither of them. Never were, probably never will be."

I shuddered slightly at the thought.

And I still thought that this day was just going to get weirder. Shrine maidens, flying women, and eight year olds that drank sake and lifted people more than twice their age with the ease of a baby's toy; I was pretty sure this qualified as having "seen it all." But I couldn't shake the feeling that the world was not done with me yet.

Man, this was seriously strange. Maybe I just needed a nap. I ran a hand appreciatively over the threads of the white-red robe Reimu had given me, enjoying its supple softness. She had explained that despite her lack of donations, this was one of the few luxuries she could afford, and it would serve as a good replacement for my other, outlandish clothing. It didn't really matter to me that it looked like a bathrobe, and that the sandals I had were maybe a size too small; it would have to do for now.

_WHOO-CLICK!_

"Ah! What the-" I rubbed my eyes, because I was seeing spots from the bright flash that just occurred.

"Yes!" Another girl's voice exclaimed. "Perfect shot!"

As my eyes cleared, the new girl came into focus, and she was celebrating. She was also my age (I was slowly becoming conscious of the fact that I was being outnumbered by girls), wearing a white shirt, dark blue skirt, and disheveled black hair under a red hat. Protruding from her back was a set of small, black wings. In one hand was a camera and the other held a large yellow-orange leaf fan.

"W-who the heck are you?"

She stopped for a moment and looked at me with a huge smile. Then she struck a pose and declared "Aya Shameimaru, news reporter of the Bunbunmaru, at your service!"

I blinked. "Ok… why did you just take my picture?"

She laughed, and I suddenly found myself leaning backwards from the window frame as Aya leaned in on me.

"Well, I'm a journalist, and pictures always go great with articles, so I took your picture."

"You're putting me into a news article?"

"Yup! I always know a scoop when I see one. Reimu-chan and you are going to hit the front page!" She backed off and did another little victory dance.

"Alright… wait, why is Reimu-chan being reported?"

"Oh isn't it obvious?" Aya was up in my face again.

I just shook my head. "I only just arrived in Gensokyo a little while ago."

"Oh, a mysterious one, eh?" She stowed away her camera, whipped out a small notebook from a satchel strapped to her side, and began writing on a fresh page with a pen from her shirt pocket. "Would you mind if I gave you a quick interview?"

The question came so suddenly that I could barely answer. "Uh, I don't know if that's-"

"Great!" Aya backed up a few steps and kicked off her shoes.

Once I realized what she was about to do, I barely had a second to dodge away from the window before Aya came flying through. Literally! A gust of wind almost knocked me to the floor.

Aya touched down lightly in the center of the room, then threw herself onto the bed and knelt on the foot of it. She gestured over to the opposite end, and said "Well? Let's get this interview started!" Her smile was smaller now.

I was about to object when I stopped myself, and smiled. I had to admit, Aya's zeal for journalism was admirable. She meant serious business with this. I felt a little imposed, being thrust into an interview so quickly, but that was fine; it would have been rude to turn her down anyways. Maybe if she talked to me about certain things, I could begin working out pieces of my memory.

"Yeah. Let's."

No sooner did I kneel on the other end of the bed when a large black crow flew through the window. "There you are!" Aya exclaimed as it perched on her shoulder and let out a caw. Again, I stopped myself from saying anything.

She turned back to me. "Alright, let's get cracking!"

*End Chapter*

This has been done a million times before, no doubt, but I want to add little footnotes here just for fun.

Yes, this chapter and the previous chapter were pretty short, but apparently, this was how the intro worked itself out. I'd like to add more, but there's not much else I can think to add.

This being my first true fanfiction (well, one that I'm hosting to the public at least), I'm not sure what to expect. Hopefully some good feedback and critique, I hope!

That is, if anyone bothers to read this, that is... *sweatdrop* Yes, my general self-esteem is not _in_ the gutter, but it _is_ the gutter. But whatever, if I'm at least posting this online, then it can't be that bad.

Writing's always such a joy though. Especially with a subject as malleable as the Touhou franchise; it leaves so much up to the authors, so writing something like this is really fun! I'm hoping my personal interpretations aren't too far off. Though if the fandom has anything to say about it, the surprising amount of normality in this fanfiction will probably wind up as a turn-off...

Ah, well, not much I can do about that, now is there? Hope you enjoyed the first two chapters. The third is going to be some fluff too, I'm warning you now. Then it gets interesting in the fourth~

EDIT: Minor one; a small review helped me throw in a quick name exchange. My thanks to VirusChris for pointing it out.


	3. Chapter 3: And Your Name Is

Author's Note: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

**Chapter 3: And Your Name Is...**

"Let's start small," Aya said as she readied her pen. "What's your name, and where are you from?"

Gee, one of the worst small starts an interview could have. At least in this case. "I… don't know."

"Don't know? What do you mean?"

"I… can't remember at all. In fact, I can't remember anything about myself. Where I'm from, my own name, anything."

"I see…" Her pen scribbled a quick note. "So your memory was wiped when you came here?"

"Not exactly. I still have a sense of self, even though I have no recollections of my past." The statement surprised me as much as Aya. Was I even sure this was the real me at all?

"Interesting. So what do you think of Gensokyo so far?"

"Well, I haven't seen much yet, so I can't say… but so far, I feel kind of freaked out."

She raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"For one thing, I'm pretty sure they don't have magic back where I'm from!" I wasn't sure how I remembered that

"Really? No magic?" She sounded incredulous. "Well, what was life like then? Can you remember what you had instead?"

I racked my brains as much as I could, and somehow come up with an answer. "Uh… I think we had… technology. Like, machines and stuff."

"You mean like what Nitori-chan builds, and the things Rinnosuke-san sometimes finds?"

"Er, yeah, I guess so," I answered unsurely. I had no idea what she was talking about when she said that.

"Well, that doesn't sound like much of a life, then."

"Maybe not, but that was the life I lived before coming here, and I might have enjoyed it. But I actually like Gensokyo considerably more right now!"

"Why's that?" She seemed genuinely curious with this question.

"Well, magic was always something that fascinated me, and now, here in Gensokyo, I can experience and study it first-hand. It's kind of like a dream come true! And magic aside, there's _way_ more nature here than in my world. I at least remember that… sort of."

For a few seconds, little could be heard beyond the scratching of Aya's pen dancing across the page. It made me wonder what she was writing down.

"That sounds really fascinating. Though I'll have to warn you, the magic you see around here might not be what you would expect," she said.

"That's fine. Magic is magic, no matter what it looks like. I'd be able to enjoy just seeing it!"

"Alright then!" She scribbled another note. "Now, onto other business. What do you think of the people here?"

A single word popped into my head immediately. "Outnumbered."

Aya looked confused. "How's that?

"When I first woke up, I was surrounded by five girls looking over me."

"That doesn't sound that bad. You're…" She quickly assessed my look. "A human, right? About sixteen or seventeen?"

I nodded. How she was able to tell that fast, I was not even sure.

"Well then waking up surrounded by girls shouldn't be that bad."

I laughed a little. "No, I guess not."

"Not nearly as bad as it is for girls. I mean, if a girl woke up and found herself surrounded by five guys, what do you think she would assume?"

I pulled a wry smile. "Probably the same, except worse!"

Now it was her turn to laugh. "Maybe, but that doesn't explain why you feel outnumbered."

I considered my words for a bit before responding. "I guess… I guess it just feels like a first impression; I simply haven't seen any other guys yet. I'm not assuming anything, but…" I trailed off.

Aya nodded. "I get what you're saying." Another note. "Who were the five?"

"Um… Well, there was Reimu-chan, of course. Then there was Suika-chan, Yuugi-san, Yukari-sama, and Eirin-sama."

"Yukari-sama was awake?" She sounded quite astonished.

I nodded. "Is there something strange about that?"

"Well, usually, Yukari-sama is asleep during the day. It seems strange that she would be one of those to bear witness to your arrival."

"While I was half conscious, Yukari-sama and Reimu-chan had a brief exchange, and it turns out Yukari was the one who brought me here."

"Really! I see…hm, well, what about Reimu-chan? She's about your age, maybe a little younger. Any thoughts on her?"

"Reimu-chan? Well…." I wasn't sure how to answer. The implications came a little too explicitly, so I tried to dodge the question. "She's really nice for letting me stay at the shrine. In fact, she invited me to stay after asking me if I had a place to stay, and I told her no. Though I'm going to have to find some kind of work soon, since I have a small rent to pay for being here."

"Oh, really?" Aya's tone was a little _too_ suggestive, and I shifted uneasily. Then she said "Any thoughts on her _as a boy_?"

"Uh…." I scratched my head in embarrassment. There's no dodging it this time, but how was I supposed to answer that question? I drummed my fingers, and I could feel my face turning pink. "Well… she's… pretty cute, I guess…."

A single second stretched out into about ten as I realized what I just said.

A big smile stretched across Aya's face as she wrote down another note. "Oh, now _that's_ juicy!"

"Wait! That's not-"

She started laughing. "I'm just teasing you. Don't' worry, that's not going to be in the article, okay?"

I sighed in relief. Seriously, an offhand comment like that could be more destructive than a bomb. And in a world like Gensokyo, I was pretty much ready to believe that Reimu had special powers too, and could easily drive me into the floor, or under it. Or wasn't even human. I seriously hoped she was.

Then Aya suddenly leaned closer. "Between me and Reimu-chan, who do you think is cuter?"

Oh, crap. My face began flushing a light red as she stared into my eyes. Now I was REALLY caught between a rock and a hard place. Her smile had shrunk, and she looked absolutely dead serious.

"I… I-I don't feel authorized to answer a question like that," I managed to sputter out. It was all I could think of.

"Oh… Alright, then." Aya both looked and sounded crestfallen, and it made me feel horrible. Still, I thought it was really for the best. I mean, if I had tried to answer otherwise, I might have wound up antagonizing one or both of them, something I really didn't want to do.

"Well, that was a great interview," Aya said. She somehow still looked cheery as she jumped off the bed. The crow squawked, and took flight, madly flapping out the window. "Watch out for the Bunbunmaru tomorrow. See you later!"

"Wait! Aya-chan!" I got an idea and managed to stop her just before she flew out of the room. "Would you mind… doing me a small favor?"

A weary smile drew itself across her face. "Not at all. What do you need?"

I considered my words the best I could, then I said, "Could you tell the people… that the Hakurei shrine needs donations? The shrine may not look like much, but they won't be sorry for doing so."

She looked at me for a moment. Then she smiled. "You owe me one for this, you know."

"Yeah. I know. But I'm doing this to help Reimu-chan. If I'm going to be here a while, I should try my best to help her, you know? She is giving me a house and home, after all."

Aya nodded. "Alright then."

She turned and readied herself again, then stopped a second time. "You want me to do you a second favor?"

"Huh? What would that be?"

"Since you're going to be here for a while, you're going to need a name, right?"

My heart jumped a little. "Of course!"

"Well here's yours." Aya looked at me with sincere eyes. I think this might have made my heart sink a little, since it made it look like her previous question had _really_ been serious, and that I was a jerk for not answering directly. "Kaito. It means both 'sea' and 'to fly'. Like you; small, yet bountiful and fresh."

_Kaito…_ I thought. Wow. Aya had just given me my own identity with that.

I stood up, and promptly gave Aya a hug. She gasped, but then I felt her arms on my back as well.

"Thank you… Aya-chan," I said.

"You're welcome, Kaito-kun."

*Later, during dinner*

"Aya-chan gave you a name?" Reimu asked me between bites.

"Yeah. She just said that since I was going to be here for a while, I was going to need a name, and she gave it to me."

"Ah… Kaito, huh?" She bit into a piece of chicken.

"Yeah. The way she explained it… well, the name feels right for some reason." I scooped a little rice into my mouth.

The room we were eating in was simple, with a green floor and screen doors leading out to other parts of the shrine. Our dinner was a small meal of chicken, some vegetables, and rice. Suika and Yuugi weren't there; Suika had fallen asleep in one of the other rooms, and Yuugi had to get back to Hell. Literally. I wasn't sure how she was going to do that, both because she was sauntering off while still drunk, and that she was going to, well, Hell, but I supposed anything could happen in Gensokyo.

I had told her about the whole interview. Well, almost. I left out the more… undesirable parts, naturally, and the part about asking for people to give donations (I wanted that to be a surprise).

For a minute or two, Reimu was deep in thought. I wondered what she was thinking, but I didn't ask.

"Well, Aya-chan does raise a good point," she said suddenly. "You probably are going to be here for a while, and this world is actually quite dangerous to humans who don't know their way around."

I only nodded. After seeing what just happened in the past few hours, I was starting to think that I'd better learn my stuff before someone killed me.

"Alright, Kaito-kun." She put down her bowl and chopsticks. "You're going to need some advice in navigating Gensokyo, so ask me about anything, and I'll try and answer it, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you so much, Reimu-chan."

She smiled at me. "Don't mention it. What help would I be as a shrine maiden if I didn't do this for you?"

"Hehe, good point. Alright…." I thought for a little bit. "There are other humans around here, right? Like, other than you and me?"

"Yes. There's actually a human village not too far from here. It's where I get my food from."

"Whew," I sighed. "That's a relief. I thought we might actually be the only humans around here."

"That's not too far from the truth. Humans are a minority around here, to be honest."

"Really? Then what makes up the other part of the population?" I grimaced a little after saying that.

"Youkai, mostly. And many others besides: fairies, magicians, and many other manners of magical beings."

"Is Yukari-sama a youkai?"

"Yes. She's the youkai of boundaries, and is in charge of the boundary of Gensokyo."

"The boundary of Gensokyo?"

"The boundary between Gensokyo and the other world."

"Oh…." Being the youkai of boundaries would make sense of why she was able to open that hole in the floor and seal it back up. And being in charge of something like that was probably a pretty huge job. "What about Eirin-sama?"

Reimu shook her head. "She's a Lunarian. Or at least, we think she might be."

"L-luna… she came from the moon?"

"Uh-huh. Like youkai, lunarians have incredibly long life spans. While it may look like she's in her mid-thirties or so, she's actually many centuries old!"

My mouth hung agape for a couple seconds. If she was actually _that_ old, then I was afraid of how powerful she actually was, and how many salves, medicines, and poisons she knew how to make. "What about Yukari-sama? Is she centuries old too?"

She nodded this time. "You're pretty new around here, so you may want to speak to everyone you meet with respect. Most every youkai here is likely many ages older than you, and even those who look extremely young will probably older than you too. And since they're youkai, they… have a tendency to eat humans, so be on your guard. You won't have to worry too much though; most youkai sleep in the daytime."

I scratched my head. Man, this seemed to be getting pretty bad. I felt that it was a good thing that I was good at respectful speech, but things were starting to turn towards the negative end, now that I found out they liked eating humans. But…

"Wait a second, you're human too. What about you?"

She shook her head vigorously. "None of the youkai would dare eat me. I'm the maiden of the Hakurei shrine. If I were to die, the barrier around Gensokyo would collapse!"

"Hang on, I thought Yukari-sama was in charge of the barrier."

"She is, but, like a youkai, she sleeps during the day, mostly, and she's pretty lazy, actually, so the true maintenance of the barrier falls on my line of ancestors."

Brilliant yet lazy. Amazing, I thought.

"Alright," I said. "I think I've had about as much as I can take today. I need to sleep this off."

"Ok, then," says Reimu. "Sleep tight, Kaito-kun."

"You too, Reimu-chan."

*End Chapter*

I kind of wonder why every single chapter is about this length. Not that I'm actually worried about that though. Short and sweet. That's usually how I write anyhow.

I really wish I could put more into a chapter though, and give myself a chance to flesh out the characters a little more. Even if they aren't exactly as others see them, I want to be able to do something like that. But it's not like I can do much about that. You write what you can, go with what's there, and hope it's enough.

I'm hoping this is satisfactory.


	4. Chapter 4: Those Who Walk The Night

Author's Note: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 4: Those Who Walk The Night**

Too bad I couldn't sleep.

I turned over on the cot, thoughts whirling in my mind. Everything I saw and heard throughout the day was more than I could take. Youkai, lunarians, and so much more. My chances of living more than a couple days seemed slim at best.

I sighed, sitting up and propping my head on my hands. The sheets didn't help me cover up from either the cold or fear. I left the window open, because it actually felt a little warmer outside somehow, but it didn't help one bit. Guess I was going to be having a sleepless night.

There was a sudden scuffling sound. What was that?

A little rustle. It was coming from outside. Great, it was already starting.

I slipped off the bed and leaned out the window. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the half moon was out. Too many stars were glittering for me to even make out a constellation.

I began climbing out the window._ Worst idea ever_ I thought. _But seriously, I can't sleep anyways._

My feet touched lightly on the grass outside. Everything was illuminated by moonlight, so I had no problem seeing. All that lay before me were a few bushes and the forest. Now where to look first….

I only took about three steps forward before my question was answered for me.

It started off as a feeling like someone's eyes were on me. I stopped in place, my eyes narrowing. I quickly scanned everything in front of me. Beyond the forest was only darkness, so I couldn't see anything. Just to be sure, I did a second scan.

Then, at about ten o' clock, I saw a pair of red, glowing orbs.

_Ok, it's red. That's usually a good sign to start backing away_.

Which I did for a little bit, trying to get a little closer to the window just in case I needed to dive back in.

"Who's there?" I called out.

It didn't answer. It just blinked. For a few seconds, neither of us did anything. I wasn't sure whether to run or start towards those eyes.

Then the eyes turned away, and there was a quick rustling in the trees. It came to a stop right in front of me.

Again, silence. The eyes appeared again. I took a few tentative steps towards the bush where the rustling stopped.

Naturally, it took that opportunity to leap out at me.

"Ah!" I cried out, falling over onto my back. That seemed to be what saved me, because the figure flew directly overhead at an amazing speed. In the brief moment that it eclipsed the moon, I caught sight of the shadow of a small pair of veined wings.

I quickly turned myself over and got up, ready for another possible assault. The thing with wings, which didn't seem to be much larger than a child minus the wings, leapt at me again. I caught it by the arms this time. The abrupt stop set it swinging in the air with me holding it up.

_Whoa, how did I just do that?_

"Wow, you're a fast one," it commented, echoing part of my thought. It sounded like a young girl. Maybe a little younger than Suika. She even looked a little younger, having a smaller stature.

"Uh… should I take that as a compliment?" I asked, raising her up so her face was level with mine.

"Maybe. You probably won't, once I'm done with you." she said. She looked up with a mischievous pair of red eyes. A deep scarlet red.

Suddenly, pain blossomed in my right cheek and I was thrown a couple feet. Just as I sat up to rub my cheek, a pair of hands seized my wrists and forced my hands against the ground.

"Nighty-night," she said playfully. In the moonlight, I realized the wings looked like those of a bat. So she's….

Oh god. She's a vampire!

The knowledge gave me strength, because if anything was about to happen, then she was going to bite me unless I did something about it. I shoved with all the might I could manage while like this. Surprisingly, I managed to flip her off onto her own back. Taking this opportunity, I threw myself on her, grabbing her close to the elbows and shifting her arms to pin her wings as well. Now she couldn't bash me in the face a second time.

The moonlight revealed the face of a very young girl – at best maybe eight or nine – with an extremely pale complexion. The scarlet eyes stood out heavily against the light blue hair and light pink cap that looked similar to Yukari's, save for a large red bow instead of a bow-tied string

I was expecting her to just kill me in an instant, considering how strong vampires allegedly were. For some reason, she didn't. "Well, this is interesting," she chuckled. "I hadn't expected you to be so strong mentally. Most people faint at the sight of me."

"Maybe it's because I only just came to Gensokyo. Either that, or I read _way_ too many horror stories back where I came from."

"Oh! And where would that be?"

"I'm… not sure. Somewhere from the outside world. I lost most of my memory when I came here."

"Interesting… Let me up, will you? This is getting uncomfortable. I promise I won't bite you."

I was kind of expecting her to turn on that statement in a second, but something in me didn't feel right pinning down someone who looked like a nine-year-old girl. Given, she was probably considerably older than me, and she was still a vampire, but I let her up anyways.

I backed off a step or two as she dusted off her dress. She really did look like a child, wearing a small pink dress with red trim and colored the same as her hat. I noticed that some parts of her dress were splotched a somewhat darker color. When she looked up at me, I saw the glint of a fang jutting out slightly over her lower lip.

"So what's your name?"

I did a deep bow. "My name is Kaito."

She chuckled a little. "Oh please, you don't really need to bow like that." Oddly, her tone suggested that she enjoyed it.

"Reimu-chan suggested that I act respectfully to those I don't know."

"Would you have acted otherwise if she hadn't, Kaito-kun?"

"Eh…" She had a point there. "Probably not."

"Well, I'm Remilia Scarlet, descendant of the great Vlad Tepes Dracula, and lady of the Scarlet Devil Mansion."

Something nagged at me that the 'Dracula' claim wasn't true, but I ignored it. "Scarlet Devil? I guess that's why your dress is dyed red."

"Very much so. I'm sure you've guessed it already, but I'm a vampire. But you didn't have to worry too much about me biting you."

"Uh, why's that, Lady Remilia-sama?" That didn't sound very true to me.

Again, her tone of voice changed. Man, she acted pretty childish, even though she could have lived for a few centuries. "I don't usually have much of an appetite. I'm a light eater, so to speak, so you wouldn't have died of your wounds, being so healthy. Also, I can choose when I turn people into one of my own, and I never do."

I guess that did explain a bit, but then something else came to mind. "Why are you able to be so close to the Hakurei shrine? I… thought it was a holy place."

She did a nonchalant flick of her hand. "That's because Reimu-chan is actually quite lazy most of the time, and in its rundown state, the shrine has lost enough of its power for me to visit whenever I want. True, I can't go inside the shrine itself, but I can bear being around it for some time."

"The shrine is only rundown because people aren't giving any donations," I said defensively. "And they keep complaining that it's rundown anyways."

"Well, of course they do. Some humans simply aren't that smart. Especially those of the human village."

"That hurts, you know."

"What?" she said mischievously. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Uh… never mind."

"Ah. Oh well. I suppose I should head back to the mansion right now. Sakuya might complain to me if I'm late again."

Something about this caused me to snicker. Before I could stop myself, I said, "You're a vampire that's lived for, what, a few centuries, and you have a _curfew_?"

My smile melted away in a second when she got right up into my face and nearly shouted, "How dare you say something like that? I'm the lady of my own mansion, and no one gives me a curfew!"

"S-sorry, Lady Remilia-sama. I-I took that completely the wrong way. Please forgive me." Now I was just thinking _Oh god, please don't kill me!_

She glared at me for another second, then turned and walked away. Then stopped.

"I'll forgive you for that. If you'll do a single small favor."

"W-what would that be?" _Anything to make sure I don't die now…_

Her eyes were no longer glaring when she looked over her left wing. It was a look that was… hungry… inviting…

"You let me feed on you."

"Wait, what?"

"Oh come now, Kaito-kun," Remilia said. "You know I need to feed, and if I don't have my fill, other things might happen. I might even have to go through other means to get my quota of blood."

She was walking towards me as she said this. Her red eyes glowed, piercing straight through my own. My brain started feeling sluggish… like her words were laced with something I couldn't trace. How could I turn her down? She sounded so….

"Please, Kaito. I promise I won't bite too deep." Her arms laced around my neck. She was smiling like an innocent little girl.

Something in my head clicked. I remembered that she was a vampire. I really shouldn't… let her…

A single nail pricked open the side of my neck. I felt a single drop of blood get licked up by Remilia.

"Mmh… Delicious…"

* * *

Whoa… what happened?

The moon was a little blurry, as were the rest of the stars. The floor was cold, but firm. Did I fall asleep?

I sat up, groaning. My hand held my head. I felt really weak. Why?

What just happened? Remilia was talking and….

Oh no.

My hand jumped to the side of my neck. I felt three little pinpricks: One from when she was testing my blood, the other two from the bite. All of them were dried up. I looked down. Part of the white sleeve of my robe was stained pink, and a pool of blood remained where my neck had been.

_Oh my god, what is Reimu going to say in the morning? And... did she spill more blood than she drank?_

I sighed. I guessed it was going to be an inevitable question, and there was nothing I could really do about it.

I got up, but stopped myself just before heading for the window.

There was something written on the ground. In blood. My blood.

It said _Come visit me._

_

* * *

_

Gee, the more I continue to explore and write, the more I learn about this site. I mean look at it, I didn't manage to insert those horizontal lines until just now. I was wondering for the past 3 chapters how the hell people did that.

Ah well, the more you explore, the more you discover anyhow. At least now the breaks between these notes and actual storyline is more clear-cut.

Or rather, it involves a horizontal line instead of a couple of words to signify the end of a chapter.

I have to say, I had a little trouble writing this chapter at first. Despite knowing what kind of person Remilia was, I had to think of the kinds of things a "charismatic but childish vampire" would say. Which was somewhat hard, since I felt like I was going against my personal character

And that made writing this feel even weirder, albeit slightly easier, since this is supposed to be a self-insert anyways.

I'm still hoping I did a good job, though. And that I didn't degrade Remilia from her throne of general badassery by inserting a minor "charisma break" right when my guy meets her.


	5. Chapter 5: Meeting In The Mansion

Author's Note: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 5: Meeting In The Mansion**

"Well, here it is. The Scarlet Devil Mansion."

I had to say, the hike actually wasn't that long. I had expected it to be considerably more than a mile or two. But that was okay; I wasn't really going to complain about a shorter walk.

I was glad that Reimu didn't do anything too extreme upon the discovery of the bite. True, she did flip out a little, but she didn't bother too much about it except remind me that I had to be more careful. Once she found out Remilia had actually invited me to the mansion, Reimu looked surprised, but said there wasn't really anything to do about it except accept the summons, and even volunteered to accompany me. I turned her down though. I knew I sounded kind of stupid, but I simply didn't want to ask her for help when she had already done so much for me. She didn't press the issue.

The mansion itself was not that large. It's about four stories, and all some shade of red. And there are almost no windows, so I have no idea how many rooms it has. The lack of windows is fitting, considering Remilia is a vampire.

_Alright_… I breathed in, breathed out, and walked up to the gate. It's a simple iron bar gate at least twice my height. On one of the posts hangs a small bell with a string, which I ring. After I ring it, I hear a soft yawn on the other side, and a scarlet-haired woman, in maybe her mid-twenties and wearing a green Chinese pao, beret, and white pants, stepped out from behind the wall.

"Who is it? State your purpose here."

"Hello." I bowed to her. "I'm Kaito, and I'm here to see the mistress of the mansion, on her invitation."

"Ah, yes, Remilia-dono did say something of this. Well, come on in." She opened the gate."

"Thank you."

Once I passed the threshold, the woman closed the gate, locked it, and began leading the way up to the mansion.

"Er, shouldn't you stay at the gate? I mean, you are the gatekeeper after all."

"Nah. Hardly anyone comes by here anyways. They steer clear because this is 'the house of a vampire,' so I'm thinking I might as well lead you in and see what Lady Remilia wants you for."

"Oh. Alright then."

"The name's Hong Meiling, by the way."

"A pleasure to meet you, Meiling-sama."

"And you too, Kaito-san."

"Uh… just to get it out of the way, are you a youkai, or a human?"

"Youkai. Why do you ask?"

"I'm… just being conscious of who's a youkai and who's not, since I only just got here."

"Lady Remilia had mentioned that. She said that the one she bit had never even been in Gensokyo before."

"Yeah, that's true! Yukari-sama brought me here just yesterday."

And so we continued chatting. Despite my early repercussions about being respectful, Meiling made it obvious that she didn't mind it at all. In fact, it would have been easy to forget that she was a youkai at all, the way she acted so much like a normal human.

"So what kind of powers do you have as a youkai?" I asked. We were about half way to the mansion. The lawn was really quite big, and we were sort of taking our time.

"I'm an experienced martial artist, and I can manipulate ki."

"That's… it? No offense, but that sounds… kind of lame. Given, I did see Yukari-sama first, so that might be why I say that, but-"

"No, it's fine. Quite a few youkai mock me about that. It may not seem like much, but I make it work."

"Oh. Alright, then." Naturally, I still felt kind of bad about saying that. "You think you could show me a few moves before I go inside?"

"Sure!"

Without slowing down too much, Meiling began showing me some fighting techniques of all kinds: hand strikes, kicks, and a couple feats of ki manipulation. One ki move she showed me involved a powerful ground wave which, despite looking like a feat of strength, was actually channeling a large amount of ki into a stomp on the ground for a fast moving wave of yellow energy. I had to say, despite her saying that other youkai mocked her, she was really quite strong. I was pretty sure this wasn't even her full move-set.

Once we got to the door, I actually felt a little more confident about being in Gensokyo. True, I still didn't quite know much about this world, but at least I wouldn't be completely helpless anymore. Maybe.

Meiling went to knock on the door. All I could really pay attention to at that moment was a small hole in the wall that she made when she shot out that ground wave, because she accidentally forgot to aim away from the mansion before firing (she reassured me that there would be no problem with it, really).

After the third knock, the door was opened. A silver-haired maid in a blue outfit stood in the opening. Naturally, she doesn't look older than her late teens. And I can feel that she's radiating some form of power.

"Hello Sakuya-senpai," Meiling greeted with a bow. "Remilia-dono's guest is here."

"That's good," she said, but with a slight tone of distaste for some reason. She didn't look very happy. "But why are you here and not at your post?"

"Well, there isn't anyone here right now, so I just thought I would-"

"Haven't I told you time and again to not leave your post?" She sounded a little more than just distasteful now.

"Eh…" Meiling chuckled a little.

"Get back to the gate right now, Meiling-san," she said sternly.

"Yes, ma'am!" Without delay, she turned and began walking the long way back to the entrance.

Sakuya sighed a little then invited me inside.

Just when I took two steps, about to step inside the mansion itself, a flash of silver passed just by my left ear. The whoosh of air it made was sharp and quick, and there was a small _thunk_.

I turned just in time to see Meiling collapse with a blue-hilted silver knife sticking out of her head.

"That's for the hole in the wall!"

Sakuya was standing with her hand out. She had a strangely cold look in her eye. It was obvious she was the one who threw the weapon.

"Uh… why'd you just throw a knife into her head?"

"I just said, she put a hole in the wall."

"But did that really call for you to just kill her?"

"Oh, she's not dead. Look, she's getting up right now. You didn't think youkai were that easy to kill, did you?"

Sure enough, Meiling was slowly getting up off the ground just as I turned back around. She promptly pulled the slightly bloody knife out of her hat, which, now that I looked at it more closely, actually had a bunch of places where stitched repairs were made, and kept walking.

"Uh, okay…"

"Come. The mistress is waiting."

More than just a little weirded out, I walked inside. Just as I closed the door, I stopped dead in my tracks.

The foyer looked like it took up an entire half of the mansion. Pretty much everything looked like something pulled out of a Western era. Victorian, to be exact. Everything is spotless, with small tables topped with potted flowers in certain places around the room, and an absurdly large amount of lanterns. Most everything is made out of wood of some kind. Doors, hallways, and stairwells leading every which way are scattered around the room. A few fairies, also wearing maid outfits and with varying hair colors and styles, flitted around the room, entering or exiting through one of the assorted doors on occasion. I noticed that most every one of the fairies was somewhat clumsy: sometimes dusting things off in a way that got something else dirty, knocking into furniture or each other, and a few other acts of clumsiness.

"Please excuse the fairies," Sakuya said. "They're not quite as competent as neither Remilia-dono nor I would like."

"Right…." I felt a little subdued by the fact that they were fairies at all.

"Ah, my apologies. I have not introduced myself properly." She turned and bowed to me. "I'm Sakuya Izayoi, Chief Maid of the Mansion."

"A pleasure to meet you, Sakuya-sama," I said, returning the bow. "I'm Kaito."

"Please, Kaito-kun, you need not bow to me, nor address me in such a manner. It's a maid's job to accommodate guests, after all."

"True, but a guest should always try to be courteous to his hosts, maid or not. After all, a guest that does his hosts discourtesy should be deserving of punishment."

"If that is the way you wish for things to be, then I will not press the issue," she said. "Come. The mistress is waiting."

"Lead the way, Sakuya-sama."

She nodded, and began leading, passing through several hallways and walking up a couple sets of stairs. It didn't take long before I noticed that there was considerably more mansion than what the outside showed. The foyer itself looked like about half the mansion already.

I raised the question just as we passed through our third door. "Is someone in the mansion making it bigger on the inside than the outside?"

"Yes."

It wasn't difficult to put two and two together. "Would I be correct in assuming that person is you?"

"You would be, Kaito-kun. You're quite perceptive."

"Thank you. Though I have to say, it must be a pain being the Chief Maid trying to clean so much with so many incompetent fairies around."

"Oh, it's really no big deal," Sakuya said as she turned down another hallway. "Space is not the only thing I can manipulate, you see."

"Is that so? So you're a youkai, then?"

"No, I'm a human."

"Human?"

"Yes. Is that so strange?"

"Well…" I wasn't totally sure. On one hand, Reimu, being a shrine maiden, probably had some form of power, but I wasn't expecting Sakuya to have this kind of ability and still be human.

"Well?"

"It's… kind of strange. I didn't expect you to be human, that's all. Sorry." Then something else hit me. "Are there any other humans serving Remilia-dono here?"

"No. Just me."

Now that was, if possible, even weirder. I tried to imagine what it felt like working in a mansion surrounded by fairies, a youkai, and a vampire. I very nearly couldn't. I wasn't sure if I felt any better because I was able to in the first place.

"Here we are," Sakuya said, coming to a stop. She pushed open a door, which is about twice the size of the other ones we passed through. "I'm sure you already know to address the mistress properly."

"Yeah. Thank you, Sakuya-sama."

She bowed as I walked through the doorway.

This room has no windows, and the only door is the one I just came in through. A single gold chandelier burns at the top of the room. The air within the room feels heavier than the outside.

"Ah, so you've finally arrived, Kaito-kun." Remilia was smiling devilishly as she greeted me. She was sitting upon a throne of fantastically furnished wood, leaning on one hand propped up against the throne arm.

"Yes, Remilia-dono," I responded, stepping forward and bowing. "Both me and Reimu-chan agreed that it would be unwise to ignore your summons."

"And you would be right. You would not want to get on my bad side."

I nodded. "So, for what reason do I have the pleasure of being invited by you to visit your mansion?"

"Oh, there's no real specific reason, really," she says. "I simply wanted to see what kind of person you are."

"Ah, I see." This seemed like a lame reason to invite someone like me to a mansion like this. It seemed more like a way of showing off. Just to show how childish she really was. Then something from our 'conversation' raised a question. "But why were you at the shrine in the first place? I thought there was a human village nearby."

"Yukari tipped me off, saying somebody would be at the shrine. Since I was going out to feed anyways, I thought I would drop by."

She received a tip-off from Yukari? Why in the world would she tell a vampire about me?

"I have to say, though, the meal you provided was quite delicious. Not my favorite, but tasty nonetheless."

"Uh… you're welcome?"

She smirked. "So you say that you have no memory of your past?"

"Well, little of it. At the very least, I have a sense of who I am."

"But aside from that, absolutely nothing?"

"Mostly. I had an interview with Aya-chan soon after I arrived. I found out that speaking about myself and my past helped fill in a few holes, but even those that I filled in were vague at best."

"Interesting. Would you mind telling me about the interview?"

I consented, and recounted on the same things I told Reimu. She often interrupted to comment or ask questions, and usually a little rudely. I still left out the parts I didn't want revealed, but I told her about my favor from Aya regarding donations.

"You really are a weird person, aren't you?" A smirk entered her features. "So, how does it feel to have no memories except for those of yourself and now?"

"It feels… a little empty. And the knowledge itself that I don't have any memory of about sixteen years of existence is… disconcerting at least."

"I see. Hm…" She thought for a bit. "Perhaps I can help you out a little. Sakuya!"

"Yes, Remilia-dono?"

Whoa, what just happened? It was like I had just zoned out for a few seconds, and Sakuya was suddenly there, standing next to Remilia right when she was called. Had she pulled a space manipulation trick or something? She seemed to smile a little when she saw my look of amazement.

"Bring Patchouli here, will you?"

"Right away, Remilia-dono."

And just like that, she was gone again. I was still stunned.

Remilia chuckled. "Surprised?"

"Huh?" My reaction was a little slow.

"Does Sakuya surprise you?"

"Oh. Well, a little. After everything I saw just yesterday, I'm not sure how easy it is to surprise me anymore."

"You're adapting quite well to this world."

"I guess. But how was Sakuya-sama able to do that? It was like she just walked into the room without either of us knowing."

"Easy; she stopped time."

"Stopped… okay, now I _know_ I've seen everything."

"Oh no, trust me, you haven't seen _everything_ yet."

"Well, between all the shrine maidens, youkai, and now space-time manipulating maids, I would think that that qualifies for having seen _everything_."

Then again, that was what I thought yesterday too.

"Well, how about I show you something new, then?"

"Like what?"

Suddenly, there's a small _pop_ and Sakuya is back in the room once again. This time, there was visible energy where she popped in. I guess that was from her warping into the room. A quick space manipulation trick.

"Patchouli-dono is on her way right now."

"Thank you, Sakuya. You're dismissed."

"As you wish, Remilia-dono."

With another _pop_, she was gone again.

"Who's Patchouli-dono?" I asked.

"She's a close friend of mine that lives in the mansion library and serves as the librarian. You'll meet her soon."

"Wait, she _lives_ in the library?"

"Yes. There's even a bed and table arranged inside for her to sleep, dine, and read."

Wow. That was pretty much the epitome of either a bibliophile, or a dedicated librarian. I could easily imagine even myself stuck inside a library surrounded by nothing but books.

"So, about earlier," Remilia continued. "How would you like to participate in a spell card duel?"

"A what?"

She looked surprised. "Reimu didn't tell you anything about spell card duels? Strange, seeing as she invented the system herself."

"Uh…."

"Well, you'd better learn about this quick if you ever want to survive. Perhaps I can help you with this too."

She got up from her seat. One hand reached into a pocket in her dress and drew out what looked like a red playing card.

"Catch!" she said, expertly flicking the card with one hand.

I received the card, confused. It looked just like a normal playing card, except that it was warm to the touch, and one face had some kind of symbol or picture etched into it that looked like a red-tinged white cross, while the other was completely blank. Before I knew it, words begin inscribing themselves onto the blank side in jet black ink. Once it finished, it read _Scarlet Sign: Red the Nightless Castle_.

"Uh…." I was getting a little scared. She said duel..."

"Are you ready?"

"What?"

Remilia looked like a little demon when she smiled.

"The duel has begun!" she declared, chucking out several crimson crystals from her hand.

* * *

One, and possibly the only one, of the longest chapters. Which isn't saying much, considering how every single one hasn't managed to pass 3000 words with actual story material yet. Not even this one, missing the mark by only 27 words.

It appears I've fallen into a habit now: 3 days, post a chapter. It's a good and bad habit for me to get into. Good, because it means I'm consistent, which I like, and want to continue. Bad, because it means that time will eventually catch up to me, which I don't want.

As it is, I already have a good deal written out (33,621 words, and still going), but they're pretty short chapters, which means I have time before this happens (seriously, I began writing this literally WEEKS before I began posting it, resulting in quite a bit of material waiting). Still, I want to be able to keep up a certain level of consistency with posting, so I think I'll extend it out to a post every 5 days instead of 3, since it sounds more reasonable to me, and will allow me to keep the passage of time at bay for a while longer.

And with this chapter, the fight begins! Or almost. I left it out JUST as the fight started not because I wanted to be mean (honestly, I hate cliffhangers just as much as the rest of you), but rather because it felt better to end it earlier (which made me feel bad for making a cliffhanger).

Regardless, I hope this was a good chapter. And the next one, the fight with Remilia, won't be out for five days, so we'll wait till then.

NOTE: If anyone can help out in terms of honorifics (which seriously confuse me to no end), then help would be greatly appreciated. I know what honorifics denote what (for the most part at least), but I have close to no clue of which ones go where. It's really beginning to get to me, so if anyone can help out, then please do. Thanks.

EDIT: Again, my thanks go to VirusChris for his helpful review, throwing in an entire explanation of multiple honorifics. I threw them around in my head for a little while, and changed a few here depending on what I thought went where.


	6. Chapter 6: Duel With The Devil

Author's Note: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 6: Duel With The Devil**

"Whoa!" I dodged past the crystals just as they flew by. I looked back, and dodged by some more. One of the crystals actually struck me in the hand and exploded in a small burst of red energy. "Ow! What the hell?"

"Come on, get moving!" Remilia shouted gleefully as she continued firing out more crystals.

A couple more found their marks, but once she said that, I took the hint and started running. Fast. Towards the door.

"Oh no, you don't." She jumped in from above and blocked the door.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Didn't I say? The duel has begun! Whoever uses up their spell card first, or gets knocked to the floor and can't get up loses." She punctuated this by firing a red bat-shaped energy blast.

I started running again. The bat just followed me incessantly. I tried weaving, and it slowly followed. It didn't move that quickly, though.

I saw the throne and got an idea. I made a beeline for it. I waited for the bat to get as close as possible, then jumped onto the seat, and kicked off the wall, flipping over the red bat. It didn't turn fast enough and smashed into the back of the throne, exploding. I assessed the damage when I hit the floor; a large chunk of the top of the throne had been eaten away.

"Hey! That throne was specially made!" Remilia shouted.

"Well, it's not my fault you fired off a homing projectile that can barely turn. Now stop this, please!"

"Not until I make you pay for that throne!"

Great, I'd only managed to make her angry.

Remilia shot out several magic circles from her fingers. After a second or so, bunches of tinier bats shot out from them. And these ones still homed in.

I realized Aya was right; this wasn't exactly what I thought magic would be. And I added another note: this wasn't exactly how I wanted to experience magic either.

But if this was the way Remilia wanted to play, I thought that I might as well play along with her.

The spritely little bats were quicker than the one before. I charged right at them, nearly jumping over every single one with a running leap. One bat at the back of the crowd came up and crashed into my right shin, nearly throwing me off balance. I flinched in pain upon landing, but kept running. Right at Remilia. The remaining bats continued to follow.

She threw out several more crystals. I dodged, and got struck in the arm by one as the other crystals went sailing by. I heard a couple tiny explosions; a crystal or two must have hit the bats.

I kept charging. Remilia's eyes narrowed a little, and she lashed out a wing when I was close enough. I blocked it with one arm, grabbed her collar with the other, and heaved her behind me straight into her own projectiles.

Another slew of small explosions and a single screech of pain were my response. She hit the floor panting.

"Argh!" she shouted. "Now you're _really_ going to pay."

She was so angry that her fangs were bared. I noticed a tiny tremble rattling her body. Complete rage filled her eyes.

"First you blow up my throne, and now you make me get hit by my own magic. That's it!"

That was basically my cue to run. With no one barring my way, I threw open the door and dashed down the hallway. It took me a couple seconds to realize I had no idea where I was going. She would catch up eventually, but at least I could avoid her for a little bit.

Seriously, this is just insane! What the hell was Remilia thinking? I only just arrived here in Gensokyo, and she didn't explain anything about spell card duels or whatever before coming on with an assault. How am I supposed to do anything about it if I don't even know what's going on? Damn it, Remilia!

Once I reached the nearest door, I went through it. I was running down a second hallway with even more doors than the previous one. I found another door farther down and headed through this one.

I was a little late to realize there was a girl right behind the door. Somehow, I managed to not run right into her.

Instead, my foot somehow managed to catch the door frame, and I _tumbled_ into her instead.

"Mukyuu!" the girl cried out.

"Ah! Sorry!" I blurted out. I quickly made an attempt to get up and off the girl. "Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah…" she said weakly. "I'm fine."

I somehow managed to get up without making things too awkward, and offered her a hand. She took it.

I think a part of my heart stopped when she stood up and I got a better look at her.

Her calf-length violet hair is topped off by another cap (is it some sort of fashion statement or something? Every person I met so far save for Yuugi had something on their head, be it a hat or other) decorated with a small crescent moon, and is adorned by lots of various colored ribbons. Her light purple robes look like they can be pajamas or something (pajamas that apparently involved a thigh-length dress), but she still looks quite pretty in them. Her eyes are the same shade of violet as her hair, and a book is hooked under her arm. I noticed she had a slightly hunched back, and a mild blush is apparent against her pale complexion.

She looked up at me with a strange look on her face. "Who are you? And why are you giving me that look?"

I shook my head, snapping myself out of my thoughts. "Er, what look?" I asked dumbly. Honestly, if I had said otherwise, it would have made me sound like a creeper. Or more of one, at least. Regardless, if anyone could rock the "pretty in pajamas" look, it would be her.

Her eyes narrowed. "Never mind. Just tell me who you are."

"My name's Kaito. I came here to visit at Remilia-dono's request. You're… Patchouli-dono, right?" That would explain why she had a book tucked under her arm. That, and the fact she was walking around in pajamas.

"Yes. Sakuya-san told me Remilia requested my presence. Is it because of you?"

"Well-"

A scream came from a different hallway. "Get back here, Kaito!"

"Oh no."

"Was that Remilia?"

"Y-yeah! I gotta go, Patchouli-dono. Talk to you later!" I skipped around her and kept running.

"Wait!"

I didn't. I just kept going. I needed to get out of the area fast! I found another door and went through it.

I found myself inside a massive dining hall. A large table stretched out across a low ceilinged room, and there were so many chairs that there could be a feast of about twenty people in this one room.

I didn't really get to admire the look of the room, because almost immediately after I took in the scenery, a whoosh of air came up behind me.

"Found you!"

I turned just in time to get slammed in the face by a wing. I was hurled a good ten feet from the door, nearly toppling into several chairs. I rolled over and looked up into an enraged face, and a set of violet hair and eyes peeking around the open door. Patchouli was watching us.

Remilia whipped out a second card from her dress. This one was red as well, but the sign etched on the face was different.

"_Destiny: Miserable Fate!_"

A tiny burst of energy consumed the card, and all that was left was a bunch of little fragments of the card swirling around her right hand.

"You even have the nerve to run? I'll teach you to disrespect me! You're going down before my spell card is half over!"

She shot out what looked like a spearhead with a chain instead of a shaft. The entire thing was composed of red energy, and hurtled at me with great speed.

I just ran, because it didn't look like this one would be nearly as slow as the other bats she sent out. I was right; I tried swerving away, but it quickly jumped after me in a circular arc.

After another couple seconds, I turned, and was met by another spearhead chain. I narrowly dodged this one, but the second one was right behind me. At the very last second, I managed to turn away, and the head grazed against my arm.

A shock of pain shot up my arm. I flinched, clutching the part of my arm that was hit. The robe was ripped, but my arm looked unscathed. The shock was really powerful, even with the slightest touch of that missile!

Just when I got up, I was met by a third one. Still clutching my arm, I turned just in time for it to fly by. Now the other two were coming back for another pass. Damn it, how long was this spell card going to last? I dodged one of them, but the other one managed to strike me squarely in the injured arm.

Argh! The pain! It spread through the entire side of my body! I'm not going to last much longer at this rate.

But it didn't stop there: instead of passing straight through me like I expected the aura to do, it stayed stuck, and the chain coiled itself around my upper body. The chain pulsed slightly, and burned at the touch. It tightened to the point I couldn't breathe as well.

"You're mine now!" Remilia shouted gleefully.

Another shock of pain entered the other arm. Another chain just hit me in the opposite side. This chain coiled around me too, and I could no longer move my arms. I was going to lose….

I looked desperately at the door to see Patchouli's stunned face. Then I looked up to see Remilia high in the air. She had the third chain in her hand.

"Prepare to lose this duel, Kaito!"

She began a steep dive. I could already tell where that spearhead was going to go. Once she got to me, it was all over. That card she gave me was no good at all…

Wait… The spell card! I never dropped it, even when those two chains hit me.

Which meant I could still activate it; I might have a chance to win! It didn't matter if it wasn't quite as powerful. As long as it worked, I could do this.

But… how was I supposed to activate it? And how did it work?

Crap!

Remilia was only a few seconds from impaling me. I needed to do something now, or I was dead.

I mustered up as much energy as I could, and desperately shouted out the spell card name. "_Scarlet Sign: Red the Nightless Castle!_"

I could barely read the surprise on Remilia's face before I felt a surge of power running through me as the card shattered in my hand. The pain of the chains disappeared. All I could feel was magic.

A strong tug at my arms; it was the magic commanding me to raise them. I obeyed, holding out my arms like I was mounted on a holy cross. The instant I did that, I began floating off the ground, and a massive red aura burst to life around me. It felt a little like fire, but less violent. It felt like I was being crucified, except it wasn't burning me at all. But the aura raged with vicious energy, as if threatening to consume the world itself.

I heard a scream of agony pierce through the perpetual sound of the blazing inferno. Then the thud of a body hitting the floor a couple seconds later.

Suddenly the spell card ended, and the aura disappeared as easily as it appeared. I dropped back to the floor with a heavy _fwump_. Remilia was prone, lying on the floor. Her chain-spear was gone, as were the ones that were wrapped around me. Her clothes were tattered, burned, and torn in several places.

She looked up at me with a look of amazement and anger, a burn streak running across her right cheek. A low growl escaped her before she collapsed.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone!~ Normally, a seasoned writer would be posting some sort of a Christmas special, or something for the New Years, at about this time.

Of course, I'm not one of those writers, so this is all I'm going to give. I'm going to make something next year, though.

But damn, I wanted to post this chapter on Christmas day _so_ bad. I feel pretty stupid now, because the 5 day wait was pretty long for me as well. Almost too long of a wait. I simply can't make up my mind, can I? DX

Regardless, this is it, so yeah, I guess I'm going to stick to the 5-day plan. At least I can withstand this kind of wait for a while (not sure about everyone else out there though. I'm sorry!).

Still, this chapter... Admittedly, I'm not the happiest guy in the world with this chapter. Fight scenes are a weakness to me, and I know that I could have put SO much more into this (or pulled more out). I really need to work on that skill...

Anyways, you'll notice right off the bat that I used the spell card functions from the fighting spin-offs (like there's much of a surprise there). Well, the reason I did this, besides the fact that it sounds a little cooler to me, is because I was pretty damn sure I wouldn't have the capacity to describe something like a full blown danmaku battle (refer to SomeBITGamer for that, because he has the skill hands down). Sure, my descriptions will have the characters chucking projectiles left and right, but in a more muted sense. Because, like hell, people would have "hitboxes" the size of a dot on their chest in real life.

I'm kind of changing things up to fit an image I would like better, though (well, duh. Personal Author Interpretation strikes again). Some spell cards might function slightly differently (like Remilia's _Miserable Fate_ card. For one thing, every chain is usually shot out in a single burst), though most will stay the same. Also, I'm trying to work on some kind of counterbalancing system, so no person can simply overpower someone through sheer force (I mean, if that was possible, Marisa would win everything). Since many of the cards will be from Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku (AKA Unthinkable Natural Law), the power scale will be rated the same way. If two cards are equal on the scale, then which one wins will depend on other factors (I do have an explanation for why _Red The Nightless Castle_ beat _Miserable Fate_, but I'm not explaining it here), and two or three lower-level spell cards used in conjunction to one another can beat a higher-leveled one.

Alright, I'm going to cut it off there, since, if I keep putting in any more notes, the notes are going to beat the actual story in sheer content. Hope you enjoyed it.


	7. Chapter 7: Assault On The Library

Author's Note: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 7: Assault On The Library**

I fell on all fours, breathing heavily. I just beat Remilia. In a spell card duel. With her own card. Somehow. I didn't know how it happened, nor did I want to experience it again.

"Remilia!" Patchouli cried out, running to her fallen friend, but suddenly stopped, nearly collapsing herself as she began coughing violently.

"Whoa! Patchouli-sama!" In a minor burst of strength, I managed to drag myself over to Patchouli, who was still coughing. Her blush was an even heavier shade of red now. "Are you okay?"

She continued for a little bit before being able to answer. "I… I'll be fine. Could you… help me over?"

"Sure." I pulled her up, acting as a support so she could walk. It was a little stressful, as I could feel a strange numbness in my arms, but I kept her up. "Are you sick or something? Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"No… I am… always like this. I have… a natural asthma." She coughed a couple more times.

"I'm guessing this is from staying in the library all the time?"

"Maybe. Remilia does keep telling me… to try going outside… but I do not want to leave my books."

"Oh."

We managed to reach Remilia. Aside from the burns and torn clothing, she looked mostly fine. I turned her over, and her face was strangely calm compared to before; she looked like nothing more than an innocent little child taking a nap. Her chest was softly rising and falling. I sighed in relief; at least she was still breathing.

"Do not worry about her, Kaito-san," Patchouli said, reflecting my thoughts. "Spell card duels are not lethal. She should be fine in an hour or two."

"That's good," I sighed. "I thought I might have seriously hurt her."

"I'm surprised that you're concerned at all. Most people do not have such sympathies."

"Hm…" I wasn't sure how to take that. Was she expecting me to flee the instant Remilia was down?

"What are you doing here anyways?" she asked directly.

I explained everything that happened the previous night.

"Strange…" Patchouli looked thoughtful for a moment. "Would you mind explaining to me what you told Remilia?"

"Of course not." I was about to start, then I considered something. "Um, is it alright if we sit down at the table? It's kind of a long story."

"Why not?"

"Do you need any help?"

"No, I'm fine."

The two of us moved Remilia so she was propped up against the wall, then took two seats at the table. To be totally honest, her relaxed style of dress was actually a little distracting at times (I had to tear my eyes away from her nightdress at least twice) but I rolled on with the story, occasionally focusing on her open forehead to divert my attention. With every retelling, I was shortening it slightly, chucking out the parts I didn't think were important.

When I finished, Patchouli was silent.

"Er, if I may," I said. "Remilia-dono did raise a good point when she spoke to me; what exactly are spell card duels anyways?"

"Reimu-chan really should have explained this to you before."

"I know, but I guess she just didn't. She probably didn't expect me to get into a spell card duel on my second day in Gensokyo."

Patchouli sighed. "Then I guess it falls on me to explain this to you. Okay, Kaito-kun, listen to this carefully. It's quite a long explanation, and I have no intention of repeating myself."

I perked up, giving her my full attention. She drew a breath.

"As Remilia said, the spell card system was created by Reimu-chan as a method of being able to fight her as the shrine maiden with an actual fair chance of winning without the added consequence of accidentally destroying Gensokyo's boundary. When a duel is called, the powers of each contestant's cards, like the ones you and Remilia just used, come into effect. The one who called the duel names how many spell cards are to be used and what the conditions for wins and losses are. If the other person does not feel satisfied with the set terms, then they can simply refuse the duel.

"The duel only lasts as long as both competitors are able to keep going. If one of them is knocked out, or is unfit to continue fighting, then they lose the duel. Likewise, if one of them runs out of spell cards, they must admit defeat regardless of whether they can continue fighting or not.

"The spell cards themselves are specific named techniques unique to each person. Within the card is a certain amount of sealed energy to help power the technique itself, and those who wish to use them must invoke the name and incite the correct incantation. Anyone with a certain amount of power is able to possess spell cards, as the cards are little more than containers for their powers."

"Does that mean people like Sakuya-sama and Eirin-sama also have spell cards?" I asked.

She nodded. "I too have a few spell cards of my own. It may not look it, or it may be because of it, but I'm actually a very powerful sorceress. These last hundred years of mi-"

"A hundred years?" I blurted out.

She raised an eyebrow. "Is there anything you'd like to say about that?"

It sounded like she was daring me to inquire further. "N-no, no, sorry," I apologized, raising my hands in defense. "But you don't look a day over maybe your late teens."

She placed a hand on her book. "That would be somewhat of a side effect of being a sorceress. You could say that my books have extended my life span."

"I see…" I didn't ask any further than that, afraid of possibly calling down Patchouli's rage. "You said that spell cards were specific named techniques. Why was I able to use Remilia's spell card, then?"

"When someone who does not possess spell cards is challenged or calls for a duel, the opposing or a third party must provide for the person in question. The one who receives them gains control over a small portion of the giver's power, though this rule has no other purpose than to level the playing the field. These types of battles are restricted to a maximum of two spell cards."

"I never even accepted the duel, though," I pointed out.

"When you received Remilia's spell card, it was synonymous to accepting the duel on any terms. However, neither of you stated any terms to be carried out later, so it was simply a battle for no reason at all."

"That sounds… kind of dumb."

"Regardless, you won, so if you had set any conditions for Remilia, she would have had to follow through with them"

I thought about that for a bit, then waved it off. I wouldn't have really wanted too much out of Remilia anyways, so why would I have to worry about it?

"Well, that's it for the basics, I suppose," Patchouli said, rising from her seat. "If this is all I was called out for, then I really should get ba-"

BOOOOOM!

The explosion rocked the entire mansion. Patchouli was going to fall over, but I jumped out to catch her.

"Damn it all, Marisa!" Patchouli shouted once the rumbling stopped.

"Who?" I asked as I helped her to her feet.

"The kleptomaniac friend of Reimu. She's after my books again."

Oh geez.

"I've told her time and again, not to use her Master Spark on the premises. If she was just a little more willing to return her books…." She quickly walked out the room.

I followed. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what Marisa's Master Spark was. If that loud boom was anything to go by, it was something destructive (not that I needed to say that). But I was curious.

The walk was quick; Patchouli navigated the hallways like she had lived here for years. Which, technically, she had, but she had spent most of that time in the library. I supposed that meant that she memorized all the hallways in almost a glance.

Along the way, there was a door open. A quick glance inside greeted me with a small group of fairy maids huddled in a corner cowering in fear. I wasn't totally surprised by this (normally, I'd probably be doing the same), but I wondered how they managed to get there so fast.

The front was ajar when we got there. A quick step outside easily told us why.

Sakuya was flying through the air, battling someone. I guessed it was Marisa. She was riding around on a broom like a witch, and she wore an outfit that may as well have been a maid's dress like Sakuya's, except black instead of blue, and the dress far longer, extending all the way down to her feet as opposed to the knee-length one Sakuya had. She had on a large black, pointy hat on top of long blonde hair. The two were dueling with knives and what looked like a rainbow array of magic bolts. It seemed like they were at a stalemate; neither was hitting the other with any projectiles whatsoever.

Damn. So Marisa was a magician. Was there anyone who _wasn't_ super-powered around here?

I was tempted to ask that. Then I spotted a massive crater no less than ten meters in diameter in the center of the courtyard. I ran over, wondering what could have possibly made a crater that big.

"Whoa! Meiling!"

I slid down into the crater. Meiling was lying in the center, in a similar state to what Remilia looked like when I had unleashed her own spell card against her. She wasn't moving much.

"Meiling-san, are you alright?" I shook her arm. "Hey, Meiling-san!"

She groaned a little. "So… strong… sparked…" And her head flopped over, out cold.

I assumed what she was saying to mean "Master Sparked." The huge "boom" must have been from Meiling hitting the ground. Or worse, she was crushed into the ground by the beam, which made the crater. Either way, with this much explosive and concussive force, it was a wonder that _anything_ in Gensokyo remained standing. Especially if Marisa had few qualms about using said power. And it certainly looked like she didn't.

"Marisa!"

I turned back towards the sky to see Patchouli flying with all speed towards the aerial battle.

"Oh, hell no," I whispered to myself. She wasn't seriously thinking of fighting Marisa, was she? "Patchoul-sama, wait!"

"Stay there! I'll take care of this."

_Gee, like I have anywhere else to go anyways._

Marisa noticed her too. "Oh, so now I get two tries, ze? This is going to be fun!"

"I've had just about enough of you pilfering me of my books all the time!"

"Then I guess this duel will decide things once and for all, won't it?"

I was seriously afraid of what that was supposed to mean; if Patchouli won, then her library would be left alone, but if she lost, then she would have to let Marisa "borrow" books whenever she wanted. I really didn't want to know how Marisa treated books if the crater I was standing in was a representation of anything other than her power.

"Very well! Sakuya-san, stand down."

She didn't look too happy about it, but she obeyed. Sakuya floated all the way back down to the edge of the crater.

"Do you need some help?" she asked me.

"Er…" I looked around the crater. She was right; the sides of the crater were too steep for me to climb. "Yes, please."

She simply snapped her fingers, and in a _pop_ I was standing next to her. I was so surprised, I nearly fell back in.

"T-thanks."

"Of course."

From afar, the two of us were spectating. Marisa and Patchouli were flying like eagles streaking across the sky. Rapid-fire magic bolts came in a never-ending stream from both, Marisa's green, and Patchouli's blue. There were more than just plain magic bolts, though: Marisa was occasionally firing out what looked like a stream of rainbow-color-coded stars. Patchouli sometimes shot what looked like a volley of water focused into large, blue bullets. Marisa chucked out a small object, and an explosion of magic lit up the noontime sky. Patchouli opened her book towards Marisa, and a massive fist of fire punched its way out.

If it weren't so terrifying, I could have mistaken it for a magic light show.

Somehow, from what I could see, neither of them was getting hit in any way. Even the bolts that looked like they would make direct hits were ineffective (on top of looking odd, it made me feel kind of dumb for getting hit so much). I was afraid for Patchouli; if what she said about her health was true, then it would only take a few magic shots before she went down.

"You don't have to worry too much," Sakuya said.

"What do you mean?" It seemed like everyone I had met so far had a major in their profession and a minor in "mind reading."

"Patchouli's no fool; even though it looks like she's just firing off magic randomly, I can assure you she's working out a plan to defeat Marisa."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I am. Would you like to see?"

"Uh…" I looked at her dumbly. How would we be able to watch them at all?

"Don't worry," she said, again reading my mind. "I'll take care of that." She snapped her fingers.

I could feel myself pulled out of space three times in rapid succession. By the end of it, the entire battle between Patchouli and Marisa was that much closer. In fact….

I made the mistake of looking down. I nearly lost my balance completely; I was standing in open air on some kind of platform of solid energy.

"Please, don't move around too much," Sakuya warned. "I don't want to have to scrape you off the mansion courtyard."

"Y-yeah," I said shakily. I felt a little sick, being so high up all of a sudden. "Right…."

I looked back to the battle. I noticed almost immediately that Sakuya had some truth in her words; the shots Marisa fired were far more randomly placed than Patchouli's, and sometimes, Patchouli didn't respond immediately. Her volleys sometimes cut themselves short, or extended over a longer period of time, and were better aimed.

I also figured out exactly why neither one of them was getting hit, even by magic bolts that were dead accurate; before the supposed hit, they erected barriers of magic energy, completely dispersing the spell. That's a magician for you.

"You don't look like you're putting up much of a fight!" teased Marisa.

"More of a fight than you, at least," retorted Patchouli,

"Then it's about time I ended this," Marisa declared. She fired out several pulsing green bolts and began darting in to closer range.

Patchouli responded accordingly, countering with several, well-aimed bolts of blue energy. Every single one hit their mark, and the green bolts exploded.

Marisa whipped out something from a pocket in her apron. _"Ritual Sign: Orreries Sun!"_ The spell card broke in four, and transformed into four colored orbs surrounding her: red, green, yellow, and blue. Each was the size of a head, and, as one, they began to glow with white energy. Even from afar, I could see Marisa muttering words under her breath. An incantation?

But Patchouli was ready with one of her own. She spoke the words before calling out the name. _"Water Sign: Jellyfish Princess!"_ she shouted. The card molded into a sphere, then expanded outward to envelop her. In a single flash of light, the sphere became a clear, blue bubble.

The four orbs opened fire, releasing beams of intense energy. They had no effect whatsoever, bouncing off the bubble like it was a rounded mirror. Three shot off into the sky. The final one came dangerously close to hitting the grounded Meiling.

"Uh…" I said, unsure. "How many spell cards do you think they'll use?"

Sakuya looked thoughtful. "If past experience is anything to go by, then I'd say four."

"I'm not done yet!" Marisa shouted, pulling out a second card. _Magic Sign: Stardust Reverie!"_ The back end of her broom began visibly drawing in magic energy from the card fragments.

"_Earth Water Sign: Noachian Deluge!" _From Patchouli's hand, a large double-helix of water bullets charged at Marisa at a fantastic speed. Marisa didn't move in time to dodge it, and was blasted back with explosive force.

"Nice one, Patchouli-sama!" I cheered. Things were turning in her favor.

"Had enough, yet?" Patchouli asked. Through her faltering voice, I noticed she was beginning to look physically tired.

"Not a chance!" and a hand-fired laser were Marisa's responses. _"Star Sign: Gravity Beat!" _This time, the front of her broom was charging. The charging process was quick, and in a single sweep, she aimed at the sky and fired a massive blue shot.

"Why in the world did you shoot that?" Patchouli asked, staring at the shot in amazement. "That won't even come close to hitting me."

A devilish smile was all she got. "Who said I was aiming for you this time?"

What the hell was she talking about? What else was there to hit?

"No!" Patchouli gasped, and began fleing back to the mansion.

"What's going on?" I asked Sakuya.

Even she looked panicked. "I think… oh no. Marisa aimed that shot at the mansion library!"

* * *

**_Author's Notes_**

Okay, seriously, I REALLY need to make up my mind. And I suppose I have now; I'm going to make it 4 days instead, because seriously, the wait feels too long. My indecisiveness disgusts me to some degree, but regardless, this, at the very least is going to stick, because it gives one day of extra time over 3 days, and I don't have to wait as long as 5.

I only remembered now, that the stuff everybody is supposed to be doing is MAGIC. And what is more or less an integral part about magic is that, most of the time, it requires inciting incantations. Something I _completely_ neglected for the battle between Kaito and Remilia.

Now that I realize my mistake, it's kind of late to try and go back and change it (I know I definitely can, but I prefer letting what's written to stay), so the magic used in the previous chapter will remain as they are. But now that I'm wary of this mistake, I'm going to be inserting incantations where appropriate, but considering the setting, it'll be difficult to say where. And besides not necessarily knowing _where_ to put the incantations, the next question is _what_. I mean, I'm pretty sure incantations didn't use the native tongue of all people, or magic would be accessible to everyone (which, as seen in Gensokyo, is almost certainly not true. The only examples of a human gaining the same magical prowess as a sorceress like Patchouli or youkai magician like Alice are Marisa and Byakuren).

Regardless of that, I'm going to have do _something_ about it. I'm probably going to put down the incantations in actual Japanese or something (as in, not the romanizations, but actual Japanese characters. The grammar will be crappy, I warn you, because I have nothing else to build off of save for Google Translate), so expect that in the near future whenever Kaito is actually close enough to hear what they're saying. Though just as a heads-up, Kaito's incantations when he uses his spell cards (and I don't mean the ones that are lent to him. I mean _his own spell cards._ Yes, I'm planning to make up my own original spell cards for Kaito_) _will _not_ be in Japanese. Oh, they'll be in a different language, definitely, but I'll reserve the actual language for later (yes, I have this part planned -and written - already).

On a small side note, despite them having ties to magic, the various techniques the people of Gensokyo we all know and love will _not_ require incantations, because it would be kind of tedious, not to mention deathly time-consuming, to try and find something particular for every single move seen throughout the world. So those will be left blank.

Getting off that topic now. I have to say, despite the realization of such a screw-up, this chapter satisfied me. It feels kind of like I actually got off my lazy ass and did something about the fact that I suck at fights. It's definitely not nearly as good as plenty of other stories, and it's most likely not the best I can do (if there's a 'best' in this category for me, I haven't reached it yet), but it's good enough for now.

Gee, I really do use a lot of parentheses in a lot of places, don't I? Guess I just have a lot of asides all the time. Ah well, it doesn't really matter to me.

But to clarify something; written in here are basic examples of one of the rules/personal influxes I had explained in the notes last chapter. _Orreries Sun_ and _Jellyfish Princess_ are both the same rating on the SWR/TH power scale. Since _Jellyfish Princess_ is mainly used for defensive measures, neither one won that clash. _Noachian Deluge_ and _Stardust Reverie_ are also rated the same. However, Patchouli took less time with her spell, and, as such, won over Marisa in that bout.

That's it for now, I suppose. I know I had something else to say, but these notes are getting too long, and I don't remember it anyways. Hope these notes aren't being too much of a pain. I just have so much to say!


	8. Chapter 8: Tapped Out New Defense

**Disclaimer**: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 8: Tapped Out. New Defense**

"What?"

"We must flee back to the mansion!"

In a single snap of her fingers, we were on the mansion roof, standing nearby the clock tower. I nearly stumbled, now being back on solid ground. Patchouli was flying right for us at all speed, Marisa following.

She stopped several meters above the roof. She looked to the sky for a quick moment, and I could practically see immense amounts of calculations running through her eyes. Then she drew out a card.

This time, she was close enough for us to hear the incantation. _"__火災や金属、融合し、爆発的な熱に凝縮！__Fire Metal Sign: St. Elmo's Pillar!" _A huge amalgam of flame spawned to life above her head. With a heaving motion, Patchouli threw it at a specific angle. The fiery sun flew into a part of the mansion roof, detonating in a great pillar of flames. Just at that moment, Marisa's high-velocity shell dropped out of orbit and ran right into the pillar, exploding outside of the mansion's range. Both explosions disappeared as quickly as they appeared, with nothing left behind save for a small burn mark in the roof, where the miniature sun had hit.

Patchouli breathed a sigh of relief.

"Patchouli-dono, behind you!" I shouted.

She turned too late. Marisa's last spell card was already broken.

"_愛の力が、私のレーザーを充電して私の前に敵を根絶する！__Magicannon…"_ A handheld device of some kind was in her right hand. The swirling card fragments were flowing into it.

"_Final Spark!"_

A second "spark" card! Marisa thrust the device forward, and a barrier-breaking sound wave was instantly omitted, along with a gigantic rainbow beam several times the size of a normal human shooting upward.

My cry of anguish was lost in the crushing sound.

The beam remained for a few seconds before shrinking and disappearing completely.

Her lone figure floated nearly fifteen stories above all of us. It hung there… then began plummeting back to earth.

"No!" Before I knew what I was doing, I jumped.

I didn't come back down.

I kept going until I had gone at least seven stories up and caught Patchouli.

I still didn't go back down.

Her robes were heavily burned, and her hat was askew. Her eyes were barely open, but her book was somehow unharmed.

"A-are you okay?" I kind of felt like crying, seeing her in this state.

She didn't respond at first. All she did was look up at my face. "S… Sakuya?"

That was when I looked down. I had hardly even realized what had been happening, and a sudden wrenching feeling made me think I was about to fall back into the mansion and kill us both. Except I didn't. Gravity was no longer holding me down.

_Holy crap! I'm flying… So this is what flying feels like. Weird._

"No," I said, looking back with a smile. "It's Kaito."

"Kaito…?" Even half-conscious, Patchouli's face spelled out disbelief. "No… You're not…"

"It is me." I glanced down at the ground a second time before looking her straight in the eye. "I… I think I just learned how to fly."

Strange times when you find yourself saying you can suddenly fly. Gensokyo was really getting to me.

She blinked a couple times. Then said "The… books… please…"

I nodded. "I know."

I thought I saw a smile. Then her head lolled over to lean on my shoulder.

"Well, what have we here?"

I looked at Marisa with distaste. The way I saw it, she did this to Patchouli just so she could steal a few books.

"Reimu told me that you were just a normal human." Marisa said, pleasantly surprised. Her eyes, a bright golden yellow, spelled out chaos. "I didn't think you would be able to fly."

"Really now?" I said a little coolly. "Well, neither did I. But I'm not about to let you get away with Patchouli-dono's books!"

"Oh, so now _you_ want to duel too?"

"That's right. Same conditions, two spell cards. Agreed?"

"Yeah, agreed!"

"Okay. Sakuya-sama!"

A single pop signified she was behind me. "Yes, Kaito-kun?"

"Take Patchouli back inside and lend me two spell cards. I'll deal with Marisa."

"You aren't seriously considering fighting her, are you?"

"Yes. I am."

I could practically feel her apprehension. Even if she denied me, I wouldn't have cared. I would have tried to fight Marisa anyways. And through Sakuya too, if it came down to that.

Then, "… Very well. It shall be as you say."

"Thank you."

She came forward and relieved me of Patchouli.

"Here, take these." Sakuya snapped her fingers, and two cards materialized in front of me. I grabbed them out of the air, flipped them over, quickly read the names and memorized them. I slipped both of them into two pockets in my robes.

"Good luck." With that, she was gone.

I breathed, trying to level out my heartbeat. Then I turned to Marisa. "Alright, then. Shall we dance, Marisa?"

"It would be my pleasure, Kaito!"

She wasted no time in firing out several magic bolts at me.

There wasn't really anything I could do but dodge. I had to figure out a way to defeat her before I was blown out of the sky. As it was, I had already been struck by no less than four or five bolts, and grazed countless others. One of them hit my arm in the exact same place as one of Remilia's crystals, and that one hurt twice as much as the others.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I was quickly finding out that flying was not easy. My movements through the air were slow, and often clumsy. Sometimes, I even flew off in the exact opposite direction of where I wanted to go. I was surprised that Marisa hadn't curb-stomped by now; a mass amount of sheer luck was keeping me alive.

After several more volleys of magic bolts, sprinkled on with multiple lasers, a few sprays of star bullets, and the occasional pulsing bolt, Marisa laughed. "You challenged me to a duel when you couldn't even fight back? That's just pathetic!"

"What's really pathetic," I shot back, "Is the fact that you need to _steal_ Patchouli's books. It's a library! Why can't you just borrow them like everyone else?"

"Because it's so much more fun this way!" She released a set of green beams that attempted to converge on me. I dodged, nearly getting hit by an explosion of energy from the converging point.

That was when I made my move. I rushed in for a close-range confrontation. Marisa kept shooting, and I kept dodging the best I could. Several of her bolts grazed me, with one or two more finding their marks, as I continued to get closer, but I ignored them. She pulled out something from her dress and threw it at me, which suddenly exploded. I stopped in my tracks so I wouldn't fly into the magic bomb. I nearly didn't pull the brakes fast enough, missing by only a few inches.

Just as it cleared up, Marisa was there, ready for a close-range shot.

Somehow, my mind fired off quickly enough, and right when she was about to shoot, I swatted away her hand, and kicked her in the stomach. Her smile vanished at that second. I didn't stop, following up with a punch across the face, an elbow up the chin, and ending with a palm to the chest.

My hand exploded. A massive blast of blue propelled Marisa backwards like a flicked marble.

I stared after her. Then I looked at my open hand. _How the hell did I…._

Aside from being confused as hell, the other half of my brain that wasn't freaking out over how I had just dealt an energy blast from my palm was dealing with the fact I had just hit a girl. The part of me that was processing this simply screamed that what I was doing wasn't right, and the rest of my brain was too distracted to fight it.

Marisa skidded to a stop in midair. She was clutching her chest, but still wore a half smile. "I wasn't expecting that. Looks like I'll have to finish this up quickly."

She flew straight at me with what seemed like reckless abandon. Still dealing with my confusion, I wasn't able to react in time before she dipped down, then shot up on her broom, hanging on to it like it was a rocket. The head of the broom struck me in the stomach, the force shooting me up several feet. In a split second, Marisa was right above me. She swung her broom, smashing me towards the ground.

Against the sun, I could see she was holding something in her hand. It was a card.

"_アストラルの力は、あなたの悪意に満ちた私の敵に視線を向ける！__Star Sign: Dragon Meteor!"_

I forced myself to stop. A sudden wrenching feeling told me I did.

"Da ze!"

I realized in that moment exactly how it felt to see a massive laser/energy beam ready to obliterate you. I also figured out exactly what every other person in every single book I had ever read must have thought as well. It was easily summarized in seven words:

_Oh my god, I'm going to die!_

That was my exact thought just as Marisa fired. All I could see was a wall of rainbow energy charging right at me.

My mind shifted into overdrive. I threw my hands in front of me in desperation. My hands met the laser at full force. Shocking pain racked my arms, centering around the places where Remilia had stuck me with her spears not too long ago.

I barely noticed that I wasn't getting fried. All I could think to do was divert the laser in some way. I tried tilting my hands upward slightly, and the force slackened off a little.

Suddenly, my elbows began to bend under the force. My hands gave way, and I was engulfed. It was the end. I was going to die.

Then it ended. Just like that. And I was still standing.

My clothes were burned and a little torn. I was breathing like a guy who had just run a marathon. But I was still standing. Or floating, as the case would be. I had lost a dangerous amount of altitude, nearly running into the ground, and when I looked down, I saw a second crater the same size as Meiling's, minus the body.

Marisa was, if possible, even more surprised than me. "How in the world did you survive that?" she shouted.

I flew back up to level height with her. "I seriously have no idea," I answered in amazement. "But it worked."

Her expression was blank for a second. Then, all of a sudden, she started laughing.

"This is fantastic! This is the first time I've ever seen anyone able to survive my Dragon Meteor like that!"

Then she pulled out another card. "But you won't escape or survive this one."

Right as she said that, the card shattered. From one hand, she tossed a little object into the hand with the card fragments. The object – the same thing that had fired the Final Spark from before – began sucking in the fragments like it was eating food.

Not good.

But before I could react, she shot out a thin rainbow beam, nailing me square in the chest. The pain was intense! I felt like passing out.

But by mind was still running in overdrive. Even with a beam of energy shooting right through my chest, I realized exactly what it was for: it was a power conduit. She was going to use it to strengthen her beam. To an even larger size than the Final Spark from before.

Most of my previous thoughts about hitting girls went out the window. I had to stop her. Not just because she was going to blow me all the way to Hell, but because the way she was aimed, it would demolish a massive chunk of the mansion. And from what I could remember as to where Patchouli had used her last spell card, that included the library that I was supposed to be protecting.

I pulled out the card from my right pocket and shouted, somehow in a different language, _"__詐欺と荒廃は、思いとどまらせると破壊する！__Light Speed: C. Ricochet!"_

As the card broke, I swung out my hand. A bunch of purple-hilted knives shot out from my hand, bouncing off nonexistent walls like beams of light and reflecting all around us.

"Not working!" Marisa cheered as several knives passed through her like they weren't even there. "This ends now, ze! _愛のパワーは、つむじ曲がりの消滅を発揮！_ _Perverse Love: Easy Harvest Ma-"_

She didn't finish. The final knife struck her in the stomach and blew up in a burst of purple energy.

Marisa was blasted off her broom, the midriff of her dress gone. Her face was contorted in pain.

It took me half a second to realize the thin beam was gone. I seized my chance and dashed in for the killing strike, whipping out the second card.

"_レヴェル血液染色魂のかもしれないの！__Wound Sign…"_

The card split in two, morphing into a pair of knives. I caught hold of both.

"_Inscribed Red Soul!"_

My arms began swinging wildly, hacking and slashing at blinding speeds like a manic killer. Every slash sent out a wave of energy, giving me the range I would get if I were swinging a small sword. With each slash, the range continued to expand. I couldn't control it; for the moment, I had been transformed into a bringer of death and insanity.

The ensuing chaos nearly consumed Marisa's screams.

Finally, it ended. She hung there for a moment, unconscious.

I wasn't about to let her drop to the floor. I flew in and caught her in my arms. Then I looked pointedly away once I realized I had slashed off most of her clothes. Normally, this wouldn't be the worst thing ever, but not even her undergarments had escaped my knives. The only parts remaining of her outfit – save for her hat, which was wafting towards the ground – were her sleeves.

_At least she can't say anything about this._ I thought, my face feeling like it was on fire. If she had been conscious….

Man, how the hell did this work? Burning cards and the like didn't do anything more than char their clothing, but cutting cards slashed them off completely? Who's sick idea of a joke was this?

Then I remembered that it was Reimu who created spell card duels in the first place. It didn't make me feel any better, but I took back my comment.

I brought her back down to ground level, then tore off the entire top of my robe from the waist up and draped it over her chest. Then I tore off the bottom from the knees down and tied that over her… other parts. I tried my best to do this all with my eyes closed. I was largely successful, though I was still blushing from having… well, put simply, if there had been any onlookers to take it the wrong way, it would have looked like I was groping her.

Once I was finished, I grabbed her hat and broom, carried her all the way back to the mansion door, knocked, and flew off, leaving Marisa on the door step.

All the way back to the Hakurei shrine, I was thinking _Reimu is never going to believe this!_

_

* * *

_

_**Author's Notes**_

A belated Happy New Years, everybody! Feels weird to be saying this a month after I started posting, but it makes sense. New Years Resolutions? No? Well, then. Ahem...

Yes, I know this is a day early, but I couldn't wait to post this chapter. Mostly because I wanted to show my work, I guess.

Woohoo, I worked in the incantations! However, they are, naturally, hard as hell to read (not just because it's a different language, but because the text is pretty small), so to spare you the need to go on Google Translate (which, surprisingly, did wonders with grammar), I'll include all the English translations here. The first spell cards used will have their translations first on the list, and from here on out, if I use a card already translated in some previous chapter, then I may or may not include it in the chapters afterwards (though I most likely will). Onward:

*Fire and metal, meld and condense into explosive heat!

**Power of love, charge my laser and eradicate my enemy!

***Astral powers, cast your baleful gaze upon my enemy!

**** Deception and devastation, dissuade and destroy!

***** Power of love, unleash the annihilation of perversity!

******Revel in the destruction of the blood red soul!

Yeah, they're pretty short, aren't they? I wanted to be able to make something that sounded good on paper (which, I believe, I succeeded at... sort of) and wasn't super long and drawn out. On top of that, I had to think of a phrase that allowed a certain level of depiction in the spell card's effect (_C. Ricochet_ is a good example in this sense, since if you don't know how the spell card works, the incantation or name could be misleading). To some degree, it worked.

I'll actually cut off the notes here, because the other notes were simply _way_ too long. Maybe I'll include more later. Hope you enjoyed the chapter~


	9. Chapter 9: An Article On Indulgence

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 9: An Article On Indulgence**

_This is one hell of a lake!_

Heading back to the shrine was quite a different experience since I was flying back. When I had walked there, it had been a little tedious because I had to find and cross a bridge going on to an island in the middle of a misty lake. Flying back over it now, despite all the mist getting in the way, I could see that the lake was actually quite pretty. Beyond the mist, the lake surface glittered like it was littered with crystals, and it had a very healthy blue coloring to it.

_It's so clean… Why couldn't the ones from back home have been like this?_

I resisted the urge to go swimming, because I knew that public places like this probably meant taking a dip would be unadvised. Besides, who knew what kinds of things lurked in and around the water. When I had been walking there, I had thought I saw some kind of fairy hanging around behind a tree.

It was a shame. But maybe I would come back and visit another time.

I went right back to flying. It was mid-afternoon.

* * *

"Are you serious?"

"I'm afraid so…."

Reimu was in something of a panic. I was right; she could hardly imagine that all this had happened on my second day here. Still, she at least seemed to believe half of it; my current state and my outfit in and of themselves were enough proof that it had all happened (I felt kind of guilty having ruined the robe so horribly, but then again, I wasn't exactly going to leave Marisa nearly naked on the doorstep of the Scarlet Devil Mansion).

"I… I'm so sorry!" she apologized, bowing. "I should have told you about the spell card duels that happen around here. I was careless!"

"N-no, it's fine, don't worry about it," I reassured her. "I didn't come off any worse for wear, so no harm done. Although I will admit, I seriously thought I was going to die while fighting Marisa."

She didn't look very convinced. "I still feel guilty about it, though."

I laughed a little bit. "Don't worry, okay? I'll just have to be more careful next time."

I thought Reimu looked pouty for a second, but then she sighed. "Alright then. I'll get you a replacement for your robe in a little bit."

"Sure. Thanks a lot Reimu."

Then, just as she was about to walk off, she pulled something out of her sleeve.

"By the way…." She held up a large newspaper. I froze; the top read _Bunbunmaru Newspaper_.

"What's the big idea with this?" She pointed at the bottom of the page.

I quickly read the article she pointed at, labeled _New Civilian: Yukari's Souvenir_. Honestly, I felt a little weird at first, reading the title (since when was I Yukari's souvenir? I was almost dead sure Aya had something to do with that). At least until I began reading the actual article.

"Uh… Is something wrong, Reimu-chan?" I asked while I was reading.

Then I stopped. I thought my heart stopped too.

Aya hadn't kept her word.

"W-w-wait, Reimu-chan, I can explain!"

"Explain what?" she shouted. Her face was beet red as she crumpled up the newspaper and threw it at me. "You practically made a pass at me while I wasn't looking! How are you supposed to explain that?"

"What was I supposed to say? Aya was the one who asked the question!"

"You could have just told her you couldn't answer her."

God! Why hadn't Aya omitted that from the newspaper? She had told me she would, and now Reimu was really angry at me!

My gaze dropped to the floor. "I-I'm sorry. I was only answering honestly. I didn't mean to make you angry. I really should have just told her that I couldn't answer her. I wasn't thinking at the time. Please, forgive me."

I stared for several seconds as silence enveloped us. I didn't know what else to say to let her know I was sorry. But if I didn't try to repair our relationship, things would only get worse.

Then, "… Fine."

I looked up, hopeful. Reimu was still blushing, and she didn't meet my eyes, but she seemed calm now.

"I… I suppose I can't blame you for acting the way you did. Aya was just being pushy as usual."

I was so happy I wasn't sure what to say. So I settled for a simple bow, and "Thank you, Reimu-chan."

Her eyes looked at me questioningly. "Do you… really think that? That I'm… you know…."

I wasn't sure of how I was supposed to answer. So I just echoed the newspaper article, saying, "Yeah… I do."

Right at that moment, my brain seemed to catch up to me when I saw Reimu's face, and I quickly said, "W-well, I mean what I say, of course, but I-I don't want you taking it the wrong way, because…well…." I trailed off, scratching my head in embarrassment. What was I supposed to say past that?

"It's fine," she said. Then she smiled a little. "Thank you. That's the first time anyone has ever said that about me."

"Oh. Well… I don't see why not… Wait! Uh…."

_Oh god, what the hell am I saying?_

She giggled. "It's fine, Kaito-kun. Thank you."

I could only stare at the floor, my face burning.

"Huh?"

I looked up to see Reimu surprised. She was looking at something behind me. I turned, and saw a group of three people – a family – walking up the path to the shrine.

"Hey, it's that guy from the newspaper!" cried a small kid, pointing right at me.

"My, he looks more handsome in person," said a middle-aged woman.

"Indeed," agreed an older man. "But just what is he wearing? He looks like he's in a loincloth!"

"Haha, funny guy in a loincloth!" the kid shouted gleefully.

"And that's the shrine maiden as well, right?"

"Yes, it is," the woman confirmed. "She really is quite pretty isn't she?"

I was so stunned that I didn't do anything for a moment. When I turned to Reimu, I saw that she was just as shocked as I was.

The trio walked right past us, still chatting, to the front of the shrine. All three of them stood there, bowing, for several seconds. Then, just before they left, the father pulled out several yen notes and dropped them into the donation box at the foot of the stairs.

They walked away with hardly a word.

"I can't believe it," Reimu breathed once they were gone. "I just got a donation… I haven't had a donation in ages…."

All I did was look at her and smile. Apparently, she had missed that part of the article.

"Did you have something to do with this, Kaito-kun?" She asked in amazement.

"Yeah. I did. Check the article again. Read the rest of it."

She ran over, swept up the Bunbunmaru, and pulled it open, scanning the article. When she finished, she looked at me like I had just dropped from the moon.

"You…." Reimu was lost for words. "You did this… for me?"

"Of course," I said calmly. "You've already done so much for me, I couldn't think of any better way to thank you for it."

She didn't do anything for a couple seconds. Then she jumped in and hugged me tightly. "That's so nice of you. Thank you!"

I returned the hug, and drew away.

"This is only the beginning!" Reimu cried out. "Maybe now, people will come by to renew their _ofuda,_ or buy _omamori _or _omikuji._ I'll need to make more in the near future! A-and I need to make sure to set out a Temizu basin. Oh, I need to find some way to celebrate too! I'll tell Suika!"

I didn't really have the heart to stop her, even though I kind of knew what to expect tonight; sake. Lots and lots of sake.

_Whew, at least I managed to avoid the sake._

That in and of itself was practically an accomplishment. Even Reimu didn't stop herself from a little indulgence (and I learned the hard way that she couldn't exactly hold her liquor; she was smashed in only a couple drinks). Then again, the food was still good, so I really didn't have much to complain about.

I wandered back into my room, sliding the door closed, and leaving Reimu and Suika to party a little longer; I didn't exactly want to be the stick-in-the-mud who called for its end, so I had quietly excused myself. After a good meal, and having so much happening today, all I really wanted was a good night's rest. I threw myself onto the bed, now dressed up in a new robe Reimu had given me.

_Man, I seriously hope tomorrow is a little less eventful._ I thought.

I laughed at myself out loud. That was a pretty ludicrous thought.

After lying in bed for a couple minutes, I realized I wasn't exactly going to fall asleep any time soon. But that was fine. At least I got a chance to rest and recollect my thoughts on today.

Then I heard the door sliding open. So much for trying to recollect my thoughts. I didn't bother getting up, because I was still pretty tired. The main room was too far from here, so I couldn't see who it was due to a lack of light.

"Kaito…."

Oh. It was Reimu.

There were a few footsteps. I could see her tottering over out of the corner of my eye. What was she doing here anyways?

My question was answered barely seconds later. She crawled into bed next to me.

Wait, what?

I shuddered a little, and I almost immediately started to panic. _Calm down_ I thought. _She's just drunk. Just calm the hell down._

Her hand draped itself over my chest. I had no idea what I was supposed to do about this. I couldn't just push Reimu off me, nor could I let this continue.

_What the hell am I supposed to do?_

I think I started shivering, because all of a sudden, Reimu asked me "Are you cold, Kaito-kun?" Her voice was slurred, and it sounded a little more… intimate than I would've liked.

"Uh, n-no, thank you Reimu-chan," I managed. It was all I could do to not shift into full blown panic mode.

"You don't mind me lying here for a little while, do you?"

"O-of course not!"

She giggled a little, and held me a little tighter.

I seriously could have denied her company and hoped that she woke up the next morning without any memory of this, but I simply couldn't bring myself to do that. Damn it, trying to be the nice guy all the time was tough!

At the very least, I sought comfort in the fact that no one could see us like this.

Then, all of a sudden, I could feel someone else's presence. As in, I could sense them in my mind. Since when was I able to do that? Wait….

"Well, what have we here?"

I practically felt my heart freeze when I heard that. Moving as little as possible, I lifted my head to look at the window.

"A-Aya-chan, w-what the hell are you doing here?" I whispered out as loudly as possible.

The crow girl chuckled. "I noticed the lights were brighter than usual at the shrine, so I thought I would stop by. And look what I just found!"

_Now_ I was panicking. Through clenched teeth, I said "For god's sake, _please_ don't take a picture o-"

"Is something wrong, Kaito-kun?" Reimu asked.

"N-no, no, n-nothing's wrong. Don't worry," I assured. I pulled a nervous smile, hoping she would buy it.

She looked at me with strange, sleepy eyes. Then she smiled and lay back down.

I sighed, forcing myself to calm back down. "Okay, Aya-chan, if you didn't come here for any other reason than to visit, then please leave!" I pleaded desperately.

"That's not my only reason," she said, whipping out her notebook again. "Would you mind telling me what happened in the Scarlet Devil Mansion? Reimu had told me you were invited to go. Then when I heard some people saying they heard loud noises, I thought maybe, but when I actually got there…."

Suddenly, she started cracking up. "What in the world did you do to Marisa?"

I was pretty sure she could see my face turning bright red even under the cover of darkness, because I could tell she was trying very hard not to laugh.

"I-it's not what it looks like! I was in a spell card duel with her, and I was borrowing one of Sakuya-sama's spell cards."

"So you _slashed off her clothes_? Great job, you've gained the title of pervert!"

"That wasn't even my intention! How was I supposed to know that was going to happen, I don't know anything about spell card duels!"

"Good point, but look at you right now. What happened here? You do know that your title is gaining speed as we speak."

"She's just drunk!"

Reimu groaned. "Kaito… something's wrong?"

"N-no, I already said, nothing's wrong."

She gave me that strange look again. "You don't want me here, do you?"

"T-that's not true. I'm fine, really."

Her gaze held for a couple seconds. Then she smiled again. "Okay."

I thought she was going to lie back down, but then she suddenly said "Do you really think I'm cute?"

I shot a look over at Aya, basically telling her that she'd better not say anything, and that I was sorry, and answered, "Y-yeah… I do." Aya's presence only made it harder to say, but if Reimu was drunk right now, then saying otherwise was probably going to get me killed.

"I never got a chance to properly thank you for what you did."

Before I could do anything to possibly deny her "thank you" whatever it was, she kissed me on the cheek.

When she finally looked like she might have passed out, I was breathing deeply, very quietly telling myself "She's just drunk, don't flip out… She's just drunk, don't flip out…."

I really felt like doing just that.

It took me a couple seconds to remember Aya was still there. "If you say anything about this…."

"Don't worry," she said. "I won't."

I wanted to point out that that was what she had said about my comment on Reimu, but decided against it. Especially considering the favor I had asked her for in the first place.

"Good luck with your little… dilemma." Her voice was practically dripping with sarcasm.

With that, she was gone.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

Well, looks like school has kicked itself back into gear. I wonder how this is going to effect my writing schedule...

Ah well, I'll worry about that later. Onwards!

Gee, I seem to really like putting myself in dangerous or compromising situations, don't I? Weird question though: would that make me a sadist (since I seem to enjoy causing pain) or a masochist (because this is supposed to be a self-insert, so I'm technically causing myself pain)? Hard to tell.

Boy was this chapter fun to write. Don't worry, Cirno fans; she'll be making a return appearance later on. Honestly, I felt kinda bad punting the little 9-ball to the side (I had originally planned to incorporate her in some way in this chapter, but couldn't work it in), but when I bring her back, I'll make sure I do something about that. Though it may be in a way you may not like. Just a forewarning.

For all future records, I do not claim to know the true nature of what happens when someone is drunk. All I really know is that it seems to make some people act really, _really_ weirdly. In any case, I'm kinda sure that the way Reimu just acted is more or less a copy of something that, no doubt, happened in some other story, anime, or other, so yeah.

Hope you enjoyed that chapter!


	10. Chapter 10: Just Plain Unlucky

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 10: Just Plain Unlucky**

"Kyaa!"

The scream woke me so suddenly, my eyes snapped open, fully awake. Reimu was off the bed, and extremely red in the face. Her clothes looked really disheveled.

"Wha… what are you…."

"Calm down, Reimu-chan, please. I can explain this too."

"I was… you were…."

"You were drunk last night, and you… sort of crawled into my bed," I stated plainly.

"I…." Suddenly, she groaned and clutched her head.

"Whoa, Reimu-chan!" I jumped out of bed to catch her before she crumpled

"Ow…" she muttered. "Ah… I feel…."

"It's just a hangover, Reimu-chan," I said as soothingly as possible. A small part of me felt a little relieved that she was getting a hangover, since I had been sure she was going to beat the crap out of me just now. "Just a hangover. You'll be fine with some rest."

I half-carried her so she could lie on the bed, and drew the covers over her.

"Would you like me to make some tea?" I asked.

"Yes, please…." She groaned. She was breathing heavily. "Thank you…"

"Of course. Just rest, okay? I'll have the tea in a couple minutes."

I left the room, searching for the kitchen. It didn't take too long to find it, and in no time, I was carrying a small tray with a teapot and a cup back into the room.

"Here." I poured out a cup and offered it to Reimu. "Drink this."

I had to help prop her up in order to get her to drink the cup. It took some effort, but I managed to help her get a couple sips.

"That… really helps," she said groggily. "Thank you."

"Of course, Reimu-chan. Now please, rest. You need your sleep."

I lay her back down and waited until her eyes closed in fitful rest before leaving. I kept the tea on the bedside table in case she woke up and needed more.

Now that that was taken care of, I wandered back into the main room of the shrine. Suika was still there, snoring next to a small, dull statue. I didn't bother to move her, instead, cleaning up the remains of the party from last night. After wiping down the table and sweeping up the floor, I carried the plates back to the kitchen and began washing them.

"Aren't you the most helpful little boy."

I wasn't surprised for some reason, but I couldn't recognize who it was. I turned, and saw Yukari's head on the back wall.

"Oh. Good morning, Yukari-sama." It took a quick moment to realize that, if Aya was right about Yukari, this was the second time she was awake during the daytime in three days, which would be considered abnormal by the standards of Gensokyo. What was she doing awake?

I didn't ask her, though, instead saying "Reimu-chan isn't well right now, so I'm helping clean up."

"Really, now," she said, apparently interested. The hole in the wall opened wider so she could lean in on her elbows. I noticed that the portal looked like it could have been a massive eye, with the two points tied together by bow-tied ribbons. "And what happened to her, may I ask?"

"Well, she got a donation yesterday."

"She did?" Yukari was visibly shocked. A donation for Reimu was a pretty big thing, huh?

"Yeah. We were celebrating quietly last night, and she drank some sake with Suika. She woke up with a hangover this morning, and since she should be resting, I thought I would help around the shrine for the time being."

"You just leave this to me," she said, leaping out of her portal. She was carrying a closed parasol in one hand for some reason.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

She snapped her fingers, and suddenly, two girls dropped unceremoniously out of the ceiling. One had on what looked like a two-pointed jester's hat over golden blonde hair. Symbols in white were painted over a blue-fronted white dress. To top it off, she had a bunch of foxtails – I quickly counted nine – behind her. I immediately identified her as a kitsune – a fox youkai – and assumed that her hat was hiding a set of fox ears.

The second girl wore another cap like Yukari's, this one green, over brown hair. Out the front came a set of cat ears, and she had a cat tail, split in two at the middle, behind a gold-trimmed red dress and light pink blouse. On a single cat ear, there was a gold earring. She was… a nekomata, right?

The fox stood up and dusted off her dress. "You called us, Yukari-sama?" She sounded only a couple years younger than Yukari. Kind of like a mom.

The cat sat up and looked around with innocent, childish eyes. "Are we going to play with Reimu-tan again?" She sounded extremely cheerful. Like a little kid.

"Not today, Chen," Yukari said matter-of-factly. "Ran, Chen, I need you two to help out around the shrine. Anything that Reimu needs done during the day, I want you two to do those duties."

"Yes, Yukari-sama," said the one named Ran. She took Chen by the sleeve and began pulling her out of the room.

"Are Ran-san and Chen-chan your servants, Yukari-sama?"

"Yes. Ran is my shikigami, while Chen is Ran's shikigami."

"Wait, Ran is _your_ shikigami, and she's strong enough to have _her own shikigami_ too?" I asked, stunned. It almost looked like this was more a display of power than anything.

"Exactly," she said, smiling. "Don't worry. The two of them will take care of the shrine."

"Doesn't that sort of leave me without anything to do?" I pointed out.

"It does, doesn't it?" Yukari chuckled a little. "Don't worry about Reimu. I'll take good care of her. Why don't you go visit a few more places to get a little more familiarized with Gensokyo?"

Since there wasn't really anything for me to do anyways, I thought that was a pretty good idea. "Why not? What places are there to visit?"

Yukari thought for a moment. "How about the Youkai Mountain? There's a second shrine there. Perhaps you would like a visit?"

The name "Youkai Mountain" was almost enough for me to reconsider. But I agreed anyways, considering how there weren't any other places I knew anyways.

"Very well, then." She smiled and waved her hand.

I fell through the floor, passed through what felt like a screen of black, and plopped on hard dirt ground a second later.

_You could have given me a warning before doing that._ I thought as I stood back up, rubbing my lower back.

Almost everywhere around me, there were trees and plants, though the path was mostly clear. The air was fresh, like what you would literally find on a mountain.

Except I wasn't on the mountain yet. It was actually a long walk away from me. The actual peak stretched off into a small group of clouds up above.

Basically, it was a pretty big mountain. Was the shrine at the top of it?

What would a shrine be doing at the top of a place called 'Youkai Mountain,' anyways? What was it, a mountain of faith for youkai?

I raised an eyebrow to myself. Where had that title come from? It felt like it rang a bell somehow.

I sighed a little, wishing Yukari had just warped me straight to the top, and started walking, not wanting to fly until I actually got to the foot of the mountain. It gave me a good chance to look around and take in the sights of the forest. It truly was beautiful, with its bright green leaves and fragrant scents. Lots of flowers dotted the road, and a few cherry blossom petals blew by. So it was spring?

Suddenly, after about a minute of walking, I sensed something new. It was another person. Or youkai, as it may be. I stopped, slowly dipping myself into a ready stance. Seriously, why couldn't I just be left alone?

I did a quick scan of the area. There was nothing. And yet I could feel something.

I just kept walking, weary of a possible attack. The feeling grew stronger as I kept moving forward. It was singling itself out; I could sense it better the closer it was. Eventually, I could feel it centered on a specific location, becoming more humanoid, and I was still a few meters away.

_How am I doing this?_ I asked myself. I had a feeling it had something to do with Yukari bringing me here, like how I was able to fly and blast energy from my palms.

I kept walking, giving no notion of knowing for sure that the person was there at the moment. They were apparently invisible or camouflaged, I finally figured out. But who could do something like that anyways?

I was expecting a possible attack once I got within a certain range, but I came up with nothing. Instead, it felt as if the being were quavering for some reason. Anticipation?

I didn't exactly want to get jumped.

So when I was only a couple feet away, I leaped at the person like a cat without warning.

An ear-splitting scream nearly crushed my hearing as I tackled the person to the ground. There was a brief flash of rainbow as the person came into my vision. So it was optic camouflage.

As soon as the person came into full view, I instantly realized I had pulled a really stupid assault. First and foremost, it was a girl (I really should have expected that). Second, since I had jumped like a cat, and my hands had hit her _in the chest_ when I pushed her down, I was now kneeling over her, grabbing her….

Barely a second passed as the knowledge sank in. I somehow managed a thought somewhere along the lines of _Oh, damnit._ Then….

"Kyaaaah!"

"Crap!" I instantly pulled myself up. "I'm sorry! I-I didn't mean t-"

"Get away, you pervert!" She crossed her arms defensively over her chest and began crawling away.

"W-wait, please, I can-"

BONK!

I could practically feel the bump growing on my head as I keeled backwards. What in the world was that?

Even with my vision swimming, I tried to get a better look at her. The girl was dressed up in a teal shirt and dress, with lots of pockets on the hem. She was picking up a green cap that had fallen to the floor, and on her back was a large dark green backpack. The thing about this backpack that made it unique in an instant was that it had a human-sized mechanical hand coming out the back.

The girl swept up her cap and made a break for the woods. I could see that her face was extremely flushed under a veil of light blue, slightly curled hair, with a small pigtail on the side. In a couple seconds, she flashed rainbow again, and she was gone.

I sat there for a few moments, too dazed to move. I looked behind me and found a small brick no bigger than my hand. That mechanical hand must have thrown it at me.

I slapped myself in the forehead, not caring I had just hit the brand new bump on my head.

_Damn it all!_

"Is it just me, or are you one of the unluckiest people I know?"

I groaned. "Shut up, Aya-chan. Now really isn't the time."

"Perhaps I can help you a little." I heard and felt a small whoosh of air as Aya landed next to me. "I was just about to visit Nitori-san when I saw you walking through. Congratulations on finding her by the way."

"Congratulations! Just now, I tackled her to the floor and grabbed her by the…." I trailed off, not trusting myself to say more.

"I know. But like I said, I might be able to help you. I know where Nitori's workshop is, so I can take you there."

"Her workshop! Are you crazy? She's just going to hit me with something worse! I think a goose egg on my head is bad enough."

"Don't worry so much, Kaito-kun. I'll help explain things so you can apologize properly."

I stayed silent for a moment, and sighed. It wasn't like I had any better options. "Fine. I'll come along. Thanks a lot, Aya-chan."

"Any time. Now come on!" She offered me a hand.

I took the hand and stood. "So where's her workshop at?"

"I'll take you there. It shouldn't be too far. Take my hand."

"Are you saying you're going to fly?"

"Of course!"

"Then let me show you something."

I jumped off the ground and floated there. It was a little weird trying to consciously fly around. Then I realized that it was this awkwardness that got me hit several times when dueling with Marisa.

Aya was surprised at first, then she smiled. "So you learned how to fly, huh?"

"Yeah. Just yesterday. Sort of by accident, though."

"Well, then!" Aya took flight too. "Just try to keep up. We crow tengu are the fastest in all of Gensokyo!"

"Wait up, will you? I'm still pretty slow, you know."

* * *

She didn't exactly listen to me. Apparently, she wanted me to get faster and better at flying as soon as possible, which was going to be difficult considering I only just learned how to recently. I tried my best learning though, with mixed results. My progress was generally positive, but once, I almost lost too much altitude and nearly crashed into a tree.

Aya didn't give up, though. "You're actually learning pretty quickly," she complimented. "When I was learning to fly as a kid, I nearly plowed myself into the ground!"

I wasn't really sure how I was supposed to take that at first. Then things started getting easier as I learned more about how to fly. I could tuck in my arms for less wind resistance, or consciously will myself to go faster. My control was getting better (apparently, the reason I was losing control was because I lacked a certain level of focus), and I was beginning to keep myself from shooting off in weird directions. Aya was a pretty good teacher. Considering she was supposed to be a crow tengu, I figured she knew a lot more about this stuff than me, so I listened as much as possible.

After maybe four or five minutes of instruction, she started diving. I followed along, landing softly next to her. We were now next to a large river.

"I'm guessing we're nearby?" I asked.

She nodded. "The workshop is at the bottom of this river. Wait one moment."

I felt the need to ask how that was possible, but Aya had explained to me along the way that Nitori was a kappa, and as such had an affinity for water. That, and she had a passion for engineering, and since the kappa were centuries more advanced than pretty much all of Gensokyo, it wasn't too farfetched to think her workshop could be at the bottom of a river.

Aya walked up to the edge of the water and knelt. She touched something on the ground and said, "Nitori-san! You mind if I come down there for a quick interview?"

A couple seconds later, I heard something crackling. Apparently, there was some sort of speaker system built into the ground. A voice I identified as Nitori's came back up, saying, "Sure. You'll never believe what just happened to me!"

Aya looked at me a little lamely. "Thanks. I'll be right down."

When she stood back up, I said, "This is just making me feel nervous. I mean… she just said…."

"It's alright." Aya put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "I'll be there to help, so don't worry, alright?"

I exhaled loudly. "Okay…."

A low rumbling could be heard, and in a couple seconds, a big metal doorway rose above the water, with a stairwell leading down into the river.

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_**

Wow, this certainly takes the cake compared to the last chapter, doesn't it? Geez, the lack of luck never ends. I could practically build an entire fanfiction all its own based on how many ways I can exploit compromising situations. Seriously.

Ah well, off my 'personal topic' now, I suppose.

Holy crap, was this fun to write. At first, I had thought "Maybe I should go visit Kourindou or something. Or go exploring in the Forest of Magic in general." This idea appealed _way_ more than both of them, obviously. (wait, that's not off my personal topic. o.O)

This still goes back to the question, though: am I a sadist or a masochist? I seriously don't know.

And Yukari is awake yet again! I know it looks weird now, but it'll get cleared up eventually... later... much, much later. Hehehe, now I'm just holding back the Phlebotinum. Fantastic...

Though I have to say, Aya's "Wesley" tendencies are rubbing off on me. I seem to be interacting with her much more than every other character right now. Don't worry, she's not bribing me! Honest! Not with... not with... anything... *nervous shaking* Uh... *flees in terror*

*from a very far corner* Well anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Next chapter's gonna be a short one, though D:


	11. Chapter 11: Apologies and Assistance

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 11: Apologies and Assistance**

All the way down, I was pretty much shaking. I wasn't sure what to expect in the workshop, though I was pretty sure it didn't mean anything good to me if negotiations went bad. Considering Nitori had apparently managed to make a working bionic arm, I was ready to believe she had something much, much worse. Getting beaned in the forehead by a brick would be the least of my problems.

But then again, Aya had said she would help, so I tried my best to relax.

The walk took maybe a couple minutes. I could see a light at the bottom of the tunnel Aya was leading me down. At this point, she stopped me.

"I'll go in and talk to Nitori for a bit. Come down when I tell you to, okay?"

I nodded.

She went down into the doorway. I was close enough to be able to hear what they were saying.

"Ah, you're here, Aya-san!" Nitori said a little cheerfully. That was a little odd considering how I had basically just sexually harassed her a few minutes ago.

"Yes, hello, Nitori-san. Let's cut to the chase, shall we? You said I wouldn't be able to believe what happened to you?"

"I'm sure of that. It only happened just recently too!"

I sighed quietly. There it was.

Aya, however, gave no hint that she knew. "Really, now? Well, you may be right, but first, is it okay if I bring someone else in?"

"Someone else?" She seemed annoyed. Or maybe not annoyed. Maybe just reluctant. "I've told you before I'm not good with others."

"I know that, but I think you already know this person."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Perhaps you'd like to see him. Shall I?"

"Uh… I guess."

Aya's head popped back out into the doorway, and she gestured me in. I think I flinched or something, because she added a wink to it. Reluctantly, I took the first few steps, and just kept walking.

Then I passed through the doorway. The expected reaction I had imagined was almost immediate.

Nitori screamed in terror.

I winced in shame as I watched a small series of clumsy reactions as Nitori scrambled away from the doorway, occasionally knocking something or other off a table, all the while holding one hand over her chest, the other, pressing down her dress.

"Y-you…" she stuttered. "Y-you're that… that… t-that pervert!"

I stared at the floor at that single word. I really shouldn't have come here….

"A-Aya-san! W-w-why did you bring him here?"

"Calm down, Nitori-san," she said. "Please, just give Kaito-kun a chance to explain."

"Explain what?" Nitori retorted indignantly. "H-he just… jumped at me! And…."

"I know, I saw what happened, but-"

"G-get him out of here right now! I'm not going to listen to an apology from some stu-"

I didn't want her to finish the sentence, so I cut her off, nearly shouting "Please, listen!"

I wasn't sure what I sounded like, but Nitori didn't say anything in response. I continued, the words rolling out of my mouth like they were rehearsed.

"Nitori-chan, I'm so sorry for the way I jumped you like that. I'm new to Gensokyo, so I thought that you might have been a youkai that was going to attack me. I wasn't thinking when I did that, and I really should have just spoken to you instead. I had no intention of… grabbing you… the way I did. Please, forgive me!"

I didn't look up at her the entire time. My eyes were too glued to the floor out of guilt. Oh god, please let her forgive me….

Half a minute passed in silence. I tore my eyes away from the floor to look at Nitori. She was still blushing like crazy, and her arms were still in a defensive position, and if she was any more relaxed than before, then I couldn't see it. But her eyes – two beautiful pools of light blue – looked a little more passive. A little forgiving. Still embarrassed, but she looked like she understood.

After another few seconds of silence, Nitori spoke, her voice soft. "I… I-I think… I can… forgive you…" She looked away out of embarrassment.

I felt like exploding with happiness. As it was, I grinned widely and bowed, saying "Thank you so much, Nitori-chan!"

She still didn't look too sure. "A-are you sure… that you… t-that you didn't mean to… w-well…."

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.

"No," I reassured her. "I didn't. I'm sure of that. I would never think of doing something like that to anyone."

A couple more seconds passed, and Nitori slowly lowered her arm. "A… Alright then," she finally said.

I sighed in relief. I didn't really want to let the silence hang around again, so I tried to pick up the pace. "So, Aya-chan said you were really in to engineering and building stuff."

Truthfully, however, when I asked this, I was genuinely interested in what kinds of things Nitori may have built in a place like Gensokyo.

"Eh?" She gave Aya a strange look. Then she nodded slowly.

"Would you mind showing me some of the things you built?"

"S-sure…."

She took me on a mini tour of the workshop. It was pretty simple; cubical in shape, with tables lining the perimeter. On the way, she showed and explained several things she'd built or was planning to build some time in the future. What she showed me varied, but pretty much all of it was amazing: ultra-long distance communicators the size of pocket watches, mechanical limbs, specific tools she made for helping with future projects, and other such inventions. I couldn't believe what I was seeing; almost all of the things she had built were far more advanced than what was back home, or completely new altogether. I could hardly name all of them!

It took a little while, but as she continued talking, I could visibly see Nitori's nervousness go away. Her stutter slowly vanished. Her arms were gesturing and used for emphasis, and she was no longer blushing. Her eyes practically glowed with excitement as she showed me invention after invention. She loved what she did, and was brilliant at it. Talking with her, I simply couldn't help but be happy.

It felt a little odd being so happy, though. I suddenly felt so alive talking to her! I didn't just let things get explained to me some of the time; as I continued to understand more and more about what she was building, I threw back a couple ideas of my own, or inserted a comment or two on her inventions.

It was one of the strangest experiences I ever felt.

We lost track of time for a while, but during a small break, Aya decided to jump back in. "Sorry to interrupt, you two, but I do have an interview to get, you know."

"Oh, right, sorry. We got carried away."

I looked at Nitori oddly. She was blushing a little. I think I was too, considering how well-synchronized we were when we said that.

Wait, how the heck was something like 'speaking in stereo' embarrassing? Weird.

"W-well…" Nitori managed, "what did you want the interview for?"

Aya pulled out her notebook and a pen. "I heard that you had a brand new invention that you were going to introduce some time in the future. Would you mind telling me what it is?"

"Ah!" Nitori perked up. "I'd be glad to!"

She went over to the corner of the workshop. A large machine the size of a small tree sat there. It looked like it could have been some sort of powered-off energy core. The main part was set inside a large glass cylinder, with a control panel out the side.

"So what's this big machine here?" Aya asked directly.

"It's an electrical power generator. With this, I can fulfill Kanako-sama's wish to spread electricity into Gensokyo!"

I wanted to ask who Kanako was, but I decided that that would be better left for later.

"Electricity, huh? Amazing! But the generator looks like it's inactive. Why?"

"Well, there's a single piece missing that I need to get, but…."

"But what?" I asked.

"The last part I need is only found in the Hell of Blazing Fires. Kappa like me don't do well in places like Hell, so I was going to ask Marisa-chan to help me, just like she did last time."

"Uh…." I didn't know what she had asked for help with last time, but I wasn't sure I could bring myself to tell her about yesterday.

"Is something wrong, Kaito-kun?"

Despite wanting to dodge the question, I knew it would be better to just tell her. "Well…."

I supposed that I didn't have much of a choice, so I explained. Things got dicey when I got to the point when I… stripped Marisa… so I tried to tone it down. Unfortunately, Aya wasn't content with it for some reason, so she butted in and told the whole thing.

"I-I didn't mean to do it, I swear!" I said quickly when Aya finished. I didn't want Nitori thinking I was more of a pervert than she probably already thought. "I was just doing what I could to help Patchouli, that's all."

Nitori didn't say anything at first. It almost seemed like she didn't believe my story. Then she said, "Well, I guess I'll have to ask someone else… What about Reimu-chan?"

I winced. She was asking for exactly the wrong people. And now another explanation was necessary. "Uh… You see, Nitori-chan…."

"Are you serious?" Nitori cried out after I finished. This time, I didn't bother leaving anything out, considering how Aya was probably going to reveal it all anyways.

"Yeah… I'm sorry, Nitori-chan."

"B-but… h-how am I supposed to finish my invention now? I was supposed to have this done within the next two days!"

She looked panicked. In fact, not just panicked; she was in a borderline freak-out stage. Now I just felt like crap for being the bearer of bad news.

"I'll go."

The two of them looked at me like I was insane. I was, but I didn't really regret saying that. I wanted to be able to help her out, partially because I still felt sort of bad for jumping her earlier. That, and I wanted to be able to see the spread of electricity throughout Gensokyo. If I was going to be able to contribute to that, then I would be happy.

Also, I felt kind of responsible for pretty much knocking out Reimu and Marisa for the day, so I thought that this would help compensate.

"A-are you serious?" Aya asked.

"Yeah. I am. If Reimu and Marisa aren't able to go, then I'll volunteer to go in their place."

"Y-you'd do that? For me?"

Nitori almost sounded hopeful. I wasn't sure why, beyond the fact I was helping her realize a dream. And I wasn't exactly sure how to answer her either.

I looked her in the eyes. In the end, I settled at "Yes. I would."

I heard a sharp intake of breath, bordering on a gasp. Her face reddened a little when I said that. I wasn't sure why.

Then she smiled widely. She bowed, and said "Th… thank you so much, Kaito-kun!"

I returned the smile. "Of course, Nitori-chan."

I turned to Aya. "Would you mind leading me to the entrance to Hell?

She didn't look too enthusiastic, and made it clear. "You do realize you're pretty much completely screwed, right?"

"There's still a chance that I'm not, isn't there?" I sounded a little more confident than I felt.

Aya actually smiled a little. She shook her head. "You really are insane, but I'll take you there anyways. If you can take down Marisa in a spell card duel, then whether it's by luck or not, you might have a chance."

"Thank you, Aya-chan."

* * *

_**Author's Notes**__**:**_

Told you it would be a short chapter, didn't I? This whole thing was only 6 words short of going over 2000 words. Kind of annoying, honestly.

Not like I can really do anything about that, though. The next chapters are considerably longer anyways, so I see no reason to complain.

And the true relationship kicks off!~ Trust me, in a few chapters, the relation between "myself" and Nitori is going to shoot up almost _exponentially_, but that's not for a while.

By the way, just a random question: how many people out there would actually do what I basically just did in this chapter? As in, volunteer to go to Hell and back for a stranger? True, it's a pretty stupid notion to think about, but I'm just curious (truth be told, I probably _would_ do that in real life).

Hope you enjoyed the chapter~

(Hey, my notes actually seem pretty boring this time! That's new)


	12. Chapter 12: How To Go To Hell

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 12: How To Go To Hell**

"Hey, Aya-chan?"

"Hm?"

"I have a question to ask. May I?"

The two of us were flying side by side. Aya was leading me east at the moment, away from Youkai Mountain and, from what I could see, away from general civilization. From the height we were at, I got a better idea of the general layout of Gensokyo. The Hakurei shrine sat some distance south of the mountain, beyond a large forest of trees, with the Scarlet Devil Mansion farther than that, sitting in the middle of the large lake. A great distance west-southwest of the mountain had a small assortment of buildings set up; the human village, I assumed. Somewhere beyond that was a forest of some other plant that I couldn't identify (this forest was large enough to run all the way nearby the Scarlet Devil Mansion). Farther north-northwest of the mountain was a second, smaller one, with clouds still obscuring the top for some reason.

"Sure. What is it?"

"Well… It's about the article. Well, partially."

"Oh… so you noticed, huh?"

"Yes, and so did Reimu-chan. Don't worry, I'm not mad. The problem was solved quickly enough, although… you saw the 'fruits of my labor' last night, despite it being an accident. But that's not really what I want to ask about."

"Ah. Then what is it?"

"It's about… Well, during the interview, you suddenly asked me to pick between you and Reimu-chan. Why? You knew I was new to Gensokyo. And after I read the article, I was kind of thinking that my answer to you might have… uh, no offence or anything, but I thought you put in my comment just to spite me.

"But then you put in my favor, asking for donations too. It sort of confused me even though I was glad you did. So, why did you ask me that question in the first place?"

I couldn't see her face, since she was slightly ahead of me, but I didn't need to. I could tell she was thinking of an answer.

Then she laughed. "That _was_ a pretty stupid question, wasn't it?"

I didn't answer. I wasn't quite sure how to.

She turned to look at me over her shoulder. Her face had a slight hint of apology, despite the smile. "You could say I got jealous at your comment on Reimu-chan."

"Huh? Why?"

"You see… I'm not really well-liked by the people of Gensokyo. The Bunbunmaru isn't received as well as you think. Whenever I pass through the human village, and I do on occasion, some of them give me dirty looks as I pass by. The evidence is in the article; I put down what I hear. Because of that, some of the humans of the village – and quite a few youkai – don't really like me."

"But you're just trying to report the truth," I interjected. "What's so bad about that?" It just didn't sound very fair to me that Aya was being slandered because of her reporting. Wasn't she just doing her job?

"You tell me," Aya chuckled. "Though truthfully, I do put a lot of personal comments in the stories. But I try my best to make the story as real as possible as well, and those two reasons are why people don't like me.

"That being said… Reimu-chan is much more well-liked than I am. The village – even though most of the humans don't go to her shrine – generally thinks positively of her, and the youkai are glad she's around because she made the spell card system for them. It lets them – me included – do what they do best, and worry less about possible consequences."

She looked a little saddened. "So when you said you thought Reimu-chan was cute, I felt the need to ask what you thought about me."

I remained silent for some time. Now I understood why Aya had acted the way she did; her low popularity made her feel inferior to Reimu. And when I had said what I did, she had asked who I thought was cuter because she was afraid that a person from the outside world would have a similar opinion to most everyone else inside Gensokyo.

"Well, I don't hate you."

"Huh?" She looked amazed.

"I don't hate you. Sure, your article had a few bumps in it, but that's no reason to not like you. On top of that, you've helped me out a lot during my time in Gensokyo, so I know you're a good person at heart. I'm not going to badly treat someone I know is a good person."

She stared at me. Her look was one of bafflement at first. Then she slowly smiled.

"Thank you, Kaito-kun. That's the first time anyone has ever said that to me."

"You're very welcome, Aya-chan."

Suddenly, I got a strange idea. I smiled inwardly, then gestured Aya over. She raised an eyebrow, but slowed down a bit to fly right next to me. I leaned in closer to her ear.

"If it means anything," I whispered. "I think you're pretty cute too."

Her eyes widened. It took me a second to notice her wings suddenly stopped beating. And another second to see her start losing altitude.

"Whoa!" I grabbed the back of her collar with both hands and stopped dead in midair. The abrupt stop nearly threw my weight all the way forward, almost causing me to tumble to the ground with my load.

For a second, we hung there.

"Geez, Aya-chan!" I said, slightly exasperated. I had almost missed that catch! But I was smiling. I hadn't quite expected her to react this way. "Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah…." She murmured. "Sorry. You just caught me off guard with that."

Her wings began beating again, and she floated back up to level height with me. Her face was red, but she was smiling sheepishly as well. "Honestly, Kaito-kun! To say something like that randomly? Did you want me to die?"

"Of course not!" I scratched my head in embarrassment. "Sorry about that. I just sort of… thought it would help."

"Well… I suppose it did. Thank you."

She took a quick scan of the surroundings. Then she pointed off towards the ground. I followed her finger, and saw a large cave mouth sitting in the ground.

"There's your entrance to Hell," Aya stated. "I thought we might have passed it, since I lost track of our direction, but we were lucky, I suppose."

I nodded.

"Well, then." Aya began preparing herself for the journey back. "I wish you the best of luck. But before we part ways, I have something for you that should help during your time in Hell…."

* * *

_I didn't think Hell would be this damp…._

It was true. The pathway down to Hell was nothing more than a really damp, dank cave. Strangely enough, the way down was well lit, even without lanterns or candles or anything lighting the way down. At least, not as far as I could see.

It didn't really matter to me, though. Flying down the cave wasn't my main problem. What I was afraid I was going to meet was the main problem.

Thankfully, I didn't see anything for the first ten minutes or so while I went. I almost started to think that I wasn't going to be met by anything. Naturally, I was pretty sure something was going to jump out at me in order to attack me at some point or other, so I kept my guard up.

I was eventually proven right; I started seeing spider webs as I continued. Not just the puny ones that normal spiders made, but huge ones. Webs that looked like they might have been made for full-sized humans.

_Getting a little creepy now…._

Then I started to sense something. After another few seconds of flying, I realized it was right above me. I stopped.

I didn't want to get attacked, but I didn't want to make myself look like a complete idiot either. So I called out to the person. "I know you're there, whoever you are. So please, show yourself. I have no intention of fighting you."

For a moment, nothing happened. Then I sensed the person coming down into the light.

The first thing I noticed was that she wore some really, really puffy brown pants or something. Then I realized they weren't pants, but rather just a part of a very poofy dress, with the bottom bound in place by yellow thread. Her blonde hair was done up by a matching bow, and she descended holding on to what looked like thick gray string.

"And who would you be, may I ask?" She sounded genuinely curious, and she didn't sound very hostile either.

"My name is Kaito. I'm a human here on behalf of Nitori Kawashiro, a kappa, on a small errand run."

"An errand run that takes you into the Hell of Blazing Fires?" the girl asked. "And a human, no less. Strange, but I will not obstruct you as long as you do not disturb those who reside here."

I chuckled a little. "I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that, but I'll try my best. Thank you."

She smiled, and rose back up to the ceiling like a spider climbing its web. I think I shivered a little, but kept going.

* * *

It was kind of strange for there to be a river here.

Still, it was Gensokyo, so I was expecting some pretty strange things, but an underground river simply didn't make sense to me. That wasn't really my problem, though.

I landed down, deciding to simply walk over the bridge that spanned the waters. I didn't know how long it was, but I figured that the walk wasn't going to take too long.

Then I sensed someone. Again.

This time, the girl practically appeared out of thin air. Her blond hair had slightly curled ends, with elfin ears poking out the front. Her dress was oddly colored, being brown with purple-white lining on top, a purple sash, and black along the very bottom with red strings hanging off it. On her arms were fluffy white arm socks.

Her expression was completely devoid of emotion (which, for some reason, terrified me like nobody's business). Her eyes were a heavy green, and looked like they were piercing through my heart. In a deadpan voice, she said "You should not cross this bridge. Dangers run rampant beyond here. Turn back now!"

For some reason, this girl was seriously scaring the hell out of me. A little shakily, I asked "What's your name?"

Her face didn't change at all. In fact, it almost seemed to grow in intensity. "I am Parsee Mizuhashi, bridge princess, and guardian of the way to the Hell of Blazing Fires. I will not warn you again. Turn back!"

Now I was really freaked out. "Well, Parsee…" I said tentatively. "There's something I need to find in Hell, so I'm afraid I can't heed your warnings."

Her eyes narrowed, and began glowing. Her mouth curved into an expression of anger. "Everybody always crossing my bridge… always with some place to go…."

She took flight, her hands now glowing green. "You shall not pass!"

I responded by taking flight as well, but I didn't feel right about doing so. I didn't want to have to fight her.

Her hands rose to her forehead, like she was a psychic reading someone's mind. Who's mind was she reading? Mine? What was there to read in my mind anyways?

And how come she got to read my mind? Why couldn't I get that ability too? Why couldn't I….

Wait, what?

Was I seriously thinking that? I wasn't even sure I wanted her ability. Mind-reading was just as much of a blessing as it was a curse. But it sounded so cool to use it… I wanted the ability for myself too. Maybe if I….

This time, I actually physically slapped myself. What was I thinking?

"What are you doing to me?" I shouted.

Parsee suddenly gained a manic expression. "Surprised? Jealous?"

"What? No! Why would I be jealous? Jealous of what?"

She seemed surprised. The prying in my mind slackened a little. Then I understood; Parsee had the ability to control jealousy.

But what exactly did I have to be jealous of? I didn't have any memories to base any jealousy or envy off of anyways. Besides, I had only recently arrived here, and I loved it here. Who or what would I be jealous of?

"What are you trying to pull?"

"Huh?" Her power suddenly ceased. "You… you're different. What are you?"

"Just a normal human. But I'm not from Gensokyo. I came from the outside world, without any memories of my past."

"From the outside… Outside of Hell…." Her eyes began glowing green again.

Ah geez. I should have left it at being a normal human.

I didn't exactly feel keen on being manipulated like that again. If she was going to play that way, then I would have to stop her. I dashed in as fast as I could. Even as I flew, I could feel her influence jabbing at my mind. I ignored it. From her hands, she spawned a massive spray of small green bullets. I had no way to block them, and there were too many to dodge. I turned my side to face her so as to get hit as little as possible.

She kept spamming bullets at me. I didn't give up my assault. When I got close enough to see her surprised face at my reckless charge, I threw out a palm, striking her in the chest. I was greeted once again with a blast of blue. I continued with a double kick, an uppercut, and ended with a hammer blow, sending her straight into her own bridge with a heavy crash.

She was still conscious, and bruised where I had hit her. I let myself land next to her and bowed guiltily. I had just hit another girl. Geez, someone was going to arrest me for this or something. "I'm sorry for what I have done, Parsee-sama. Please, forgive me."

I flew off without bothering to hear her response, afraid of what might happen.

* * *

The next thing I found was basically a city.

More of a ghost town than anything, though. There wasn't a single person walking around. At least, not a single _human_ person. Everything there was either in the form of a spirit, or some kind of monster. At least, that was what I saw. It was a little too far to judge anything.

Thankfully, however, I was able to fly over pretty much everything, and for some reason, nothing else was coming up to meet me. So I sailed through the air without hindrance.

It didn't take too long to get to the place I wanted to.

Nitori and Aya had called it the Palace of Hell. It was fitting, considering the size and shape of the place. It looked like it could have been a Middle Age castle: stone walls and rounded towers. Cone peaks, and its own drawbridge gate. Compared to the rest of the town, which was pretty much basic Japanese houses from some older age, it looked both out of place and extremely imposing, being set some distance away from the main town..

_Alright_. I breathed, preparing myself. If Nitori's and Aya's warnings were true, then this was going to be one hell of a fight I was getting myself into.

_Let's see here…._ Aya had told me that some spell cards could work normally without being in a duel. When I had questioned her, thinking about the rules Patchouli had explained, she actually went ahead and used one just to demonstrate (how she was able to just screw the rules like that, I didn't know. Either that, or there were more rules than what I knew). Afterwards, she gave me a version of the card so I could use it myself for a quick break-in.

I drew it out of my pocket and quickly looked over it. The picture showed Aya with a large gust of wind coming from her feet. I already knew the name.

"_Domination Dash!"_

The card fragments streamed into my hand, and I could feel a different energy. It wasn't quite the same as the attack cards I had used before. There was less energy, and it was more like I had just learned a small, fancy new technique rather than a powerfully destructive one.

Stopping in midair, I aimed myself headfirst for the closest bit of ceiling possible. I drew in my legs as if preparing for a massive jump, and the magic commanded me to focus the energy into my feet and legs. Soon it felt like I was standing on a cushion of air.

_Here goes nothing!_

POOM!

Pushing off was like being shot from a cannon. Wind tore at my face, and a massive force was propelling me faster than a missile.

BA-KOOM!

The ceiling gave way easily. I came out completely unscathed; the wind pressure I had generated in front of me protected from all the debris. Skidding to a stop came easily.

The noise I made was well noted. _That wasn't exactly a quiet way to get inside._

There wasn't really anything I could do about it now though. I charged up for a second rush, aiming towards the center of the castle the best I could. When I shot off the second time, I blew through maybe four or five floors before coming to a stop once more.

The new room was about the same size as the throne room from the Scarlet Devil Mansion, though it looked a little smaller from where I was floating. Lots of lights were distributed across the room, and a single girl with light violet hair and bright clothes stood in the center.

I allowed myself to land nearby. The girl had on a simple sky blue blouse and pink dress, and would have looked perfectly normal compared to everyone else if not for the eye. She had a red third eye hanging right over her heart, with what may have been wires trailing out of it, connecting to a small yellow heart on her headband and two more on her wrists.

Her deep purple eyes looked at me inquisitively. Suddenly, she raised an eyebrow, and said simply "Why do you need an electron?"

I just blinked, confused. "What?"

"You need an electron from my pet's foot. You're powering that machine Nitori made."

"Hang on, how-"

"-do I know that? Your mind tells all. Your thoughts are not safe from me, as I can read minds at will."

I smacked my head, thinking _Oh great. Another mind reader._

I realized how stupid that was very quickly. "Another?" the girl asked. "Few others have my power. Not even my sister."

I grumbled a little, annoyed, and decided it would be easier to just think what I had to say, considering she could read my mind anyways.

_Let's just say that, I kind of feel that all the people around here are able to read my thoughts at will. Like you, except they don't have your ability in particular._

"And why would that be?"

_Because apparently, my thoughts are often very obvious. Or probably because I'm not from around here._

"Oh?"

I allowed her to scan through several mental images, and many of the conversations I could remember since I arrived, most specifically the ones that explained that I wasn't from Gensokyo.

"I see. You even lack memories too, Kaito-san. You're quite interesting."

_Gee, haven't I heard that before._

What was I supposed to do about this? My thoughts were no longer closed off. She could just, very literally, read me like a book as much as she wanted. How was I supposed to get that electron now? Negotiations had sort of failed, so should I try to salvage the effort? Or should I just knock her out and-

"Hey! I heard that!"

Oops. There goes the idea of salvaging.

She pulled a purple card from the folds of her dress. "You think I'll just let you take an electron from my pet like that? I, Satori Komeji, am her owner, and I will not allow you to steal from her! If you want that electron, you'll have to go through me first!"

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

Oh my god... I actually broke 3000 words with a single chapter. AWESOME! *parties*

Ahem... *regains composure* Anyways...

That part with Aya at the very beginning, I actually never put in until recently. But it helps throw back to an earlier point in the story (where Aya seems to break OOC for a very small moment). This basically helps fix that earlier issue. Yes, Aya may be sure of herself most of the time, but something like what I explained here could be pretty debilitating to pretty much anyone. I mean, she gets a lot of flak both in and out of the Touhouverse for various reasons, which I don't think is very fair. Which is probably why I portrayed her a little more sympathetically than most (guess that just means I'm trying to take some of the flak for her).

Well, moving on...

TvTropes said it best; if Satori simply wouldn't keep broadcasting the fact that she could read minds all the time, there would be less antagonism. Case in point: the only reason Kaito fumbles the gauntlet here is because Satori can hear his thoughts - a very different case from accidentally accepting the thrown gauntlet (with Remilia, when he hardly knew anything), and actually _choosing_ to throw down the gauntlet (with Marisa, for Patchouli's sake).

Then again, something similar happens in Suberranean Animism too, sort of; before fighting her, Reimu and/or Marisa wind up thinking about kicking the crap out of Satori, which she finds rather off-putting (even though it's more or less normal for the two of them). So in a sense, I basically just repeated a bit of history.

The fight with the resident mind reader is next. Trust me when I say it'll look like I'm totally cheesing the battle. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	13. Chapter 13: Completely Unexpected

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 13: Completely Unexpected**

"_中心部に失わスペルバックカードをお忘れなく！__Recollection: Terrible Souvenir!"_

The fragments channeled themselves into her third eye. When it finished, there was a massive flash of purple light.

I was too slow to react, and the light hit me full force, nearly blinding me. I expected it to do some horrifying, like burn me up, or feel like I was having my mind pried open or something, but nothing happened. The light faded, and nothing had happened.

"I can see…" she drawled out. "I can see… my mind-reading third eye will show me your heart. The beautiful spell cards in your heart shall make you suffer!"

Crap. Never mind 'nothing happening.' Now what?

Her eye flashed again. A single, pure yellow card was floating there now. She snatched it out of the air, and it broke in an instant. She drew back her arms, and the name she shouted was exactly what I didn't expect.

"_愛の力が、私のレーザーを充電して私の前に敵を根絶する__! __Magicannon: Final Spark!"_

What the hell?

I was so surprised, that I nearly didn't get out of the way in time. Even with my massive leap away, the beam was so large, that it managed to moderately burn my legs before I could dodge it completely.

When she was finished, there was a single gouge mark several feet wide, at least a foot deep, and spanned the entirety of the room, breaking a few walls beyond it.

Geez, thank god there had been a slight firing delay!

"H-how did y-"

"My third eye does more than just read your mind! Any and all spell cards you've ever seen or experienced are mine to command!"

All I could think was _Damnit, this is not going to be easy._

Then I remembered. "But that was two spell cards just now! That means that I automatically win, doesn't it?"

"Not so. You have more than two spell cards on your person, so the duel must continue, regardless of whether they are your spell cards or not!"

I wasn't sure if that was the way it worked, considering this was basically breaking another rule, but I instantly noted to myself that fighting mind readers sucked.

"I'm going to make sure you remember that thought!"

Yeah. It really sucked.

I didn't want to leave her to fire off another spell card, so I got in close. Naturally, she was expecting it, and every single strike I threw was promptly dodged or blocked, and countered. She dodged so smoothly that it was like she was a _zen_ master who was, very literally, expecting every single move I was going to make. And, of course, she really was.

I found slight comfort in the fight, though; Satori didn't seem to be a very good fighter. Her attacks came wide and sweeping, giving me ample time to either dodge or block. We were at a stalemate; neither could hit the other.

Then something else happened; when I dealt a punch to the stomach, she blocked it easily, but suddenly, when I stomped my foot back down on the floor at the same time, a burst of yellow energy blasted into Satori, and she was sent reeling backwards.

I looked down in shock. Then I tried stomping a second time, and a yellow wave of energy shot off in that direction.

I realized that that move was exactly the same as the one Meiling had shown me. Then all I could think was _How the hell is this happening…._

Satori cried out. "H-how is that possible? I didn't see that in your mind!"

"Oh yeah? Well neither did I!"

While she was still surprised, I jumped in and threw out a palm. This one connected, again causing a blue explosion. I knew I wasn't going to get another chance, so I hit her with another yellow wave, punched her across the cheek, and knocked her away with a kick to the stomach.

Satori went tumbling. She managed to stand back up, holding her stomach in pain. She looked at me with eyes that were confused and angry.

"I couldn't see that… and yet…."

"Hey, I'm just as confused as you. I was never able to do this stuff before! And look at this; all of a sudden, I'm making blue explosions with my palms and sending out yellow energy waves with my feet. And this is the third spell card duel I've participated in, and I haven't even been here two full days yet. I'm freaking out here!"

What I didn't say that I was sure she could hear anyways, was that she was the third girl I'd hit since I'd arrived. Geez, was I going to have to keep fighting girls throughout my entire stay in Gensokyo?

Karma was going to have a _really_ hard time trying to find a suitable punishment for me later.

"Perhaps you should stay out of trouble, then."

"Kind of hard to do that when you attract trouble."

Satori just grumbled. "You also apparently go looking for trouble too, considering how you asked for donations to the Hakurei shrine. And look where that got you."

Then she just stopped and made a sound of disgust.

"Or maybe trouble _does _find you, you disgusting little pervert! Reimu, Marisa, _and_ Nitori?"

"Damn it all!" Now I was getting ticked. "Nitori and Marisa were accidents, and for Reimu, it wasn't even my fault! You know, your mind-reading is getting really annoying!"

"Haven't I heard that before! The last time you surface people came down here, it was for my pet too!"

I just looked at her. "Who?"

"Those girls, Reimu and Marisa. And that damned blond even wanted to steal from me! The nerve!"

I stopped to think about that for a quick moment. Reimu and Marisa had been here before? Not for the same reasons as me, probably, but they had come here for her pet in much the same way.

So was that the reason why she was being overprotective now? Had Reimu and Marisa done something that had gone completely the wrong way?

Something didn't sit quite right in my mind, though. She was overprotective, sure, but wasn't using a spell card like Final Spark a little suicidal? Didn't mind reading mean she could feel pain as well? Had the last time really been that bad?

She didn't look surprised. "You figured that out?"

"Huh? Yeah, it wasn't that hard. I just didn't think too much of it until you tried to kill me with Marisa's spell card."

"Well, I can do much worse than that!"

Her third eye flashed again. The card was a bloody red. She ran in closer.

"_レヴェル血液染色魂のかもしれないの__ …__."_

Now I was scared. The destructive power of that card…. I didn't really feel like being on the receiving end of it, considering how effective it was when I had used it. And I wasn't exactly amongst friends here either. No one was going to do me a service like I did Marisa.

But I was too slow. By the time I was ready for a counterattack, she had already finished.

"_Wound Sign: Inscribed Red Soul!"_

I threw my arms up to form a block, ready to take the blows as they came.

_Oh no, you don't!_

Suddenly, a massive green aura burst to life in front of me. It looked like a clear shield with a design like a turtle shell.

The first slash hit the shield, and exploded. The blast was so immense, that even Satori was blown back. I escaped completely unscathed.

All I could think was _What the hell just happened?_

Then three magic circles materialized in front of me and shot out several focused blasts of visible, white wind, nailing Satori and pushing her away even further.

_You're not without back-up, Kaito-kun._

"Aya-chan?" I said out loud. "And Nitori-chan, too?"

_Yeah! Now go!_

I realized this would be my only chance, so I reacted as quickly as I could, pulling out one of the spell cards Aya had given me.

"_幻想の速度は、最も強力な犯罪です！ __Illusionary Dominance!"_

The power that filled me was immense. Even more than when I had used Sakuya's spell cards. I took a single step forward, and I was right up in Satori's face. She actually looked shocked.

From there, I let the spell card carry me through. I knocked her up into the sky, and chased after her. The power of the card shot me around like a bullet, a pure blue aura surrounding me as I ripped my way through Satori again and again. She hardly moved from a single spot from the sky; every time she was about to fly off somewhere, I zipped back and struck her again.

I don't know how many times I tore through her. But at the end, I stopped above her, and dived straight down, ramming her into the floor of the mansion.

I practically bounced off her as the power of the card began to drain away. My breath was catching as I stepped back onto the floor. I never knew anyone could fly that fast. Even Aya would probably wind up panting, I thought.

I dropped myself to one knee, surveying the still-conscious Satori. Her clothes were tattered, and torn or burned in a few places. "Y-you…" she panted. "Nitori and Aya…."

"Yeah. I had some back-up, apparently."

"Ah…."

"Wait," I said. "Don't pass out just yet. I want to say… I'm sorry, okay? I never had any intention of fighting you. I hate fighting. And you're not that great at fighting."

Aghast, she nodded.

"Then why did you attack me so viciously? Did something happen with Reimu and Marisa when they came here?"

She didn't answer. All I saw was pain in her eyes.

I sighed. "Maybe I can ask Nitori-chan and Aya-chan about it later. I'm sorry for what I've done."

Her lips pursed, but she nodded. "Go on. You've defeated me. Do as you wish." She closed her eyes.

I felt relieved I had won, but it didn't feel right to just leave her there. But what was I supposed to do about it?

Then I got an idea. What if I could consciously re-perform what I was doing yesterday and today, except for a different purpose?

I tried focusing energy into my hand. For several seconds, nothing happened. I didn't give up, and continued trying. Again, nothing happened.

_Oh come on, you've got to be kidding me. I can shoot blue energy with my hands to hurt people, but I can't do the same thing in order to heal someone? What kind of stupid joke is this?_

I sighed, and abandoned the endeavor. If there wasn't anything I would be able to do, then I didn't have much choice other than to leave her here.

Satori suddenly spoke. "You're a strange person."

"Huh?" I jerked backwards. I had thought she was out cold.

"It'll take more than something like that to knock me out," she said, observing me with a stoic expression. "But why did you try and heal me? Am I not a mind-reader? An enemy? I'm hated by everyone and everything except animals. Why not you?"

"Well…." I didn't know how to answer at first. After a little bit of thought, I managed to find the answer. Well, a bit of one.

"I guess… I guess it's because I can sympathize with you in some way. I… can remember something about myself. Well, sort of. I didn't like fighting back in the other world either. But I knew that if someone angered me for a certain reason, then I would do what I could to fight back. I don't remember what the reason is though, so I can't say."

All Satori did was nod.

"Sorry," I apologized. "I wish I had all the pieces of my memory back. But I can see that you're trying to protect your pet from any possible danger, which is why you were willing to go such a distance, despite the backlash you would receive from doing so. That was a valiant disposition I should not have opposed. I apologize for hurting you this way, and I swear, I have no intention of harming your pet at all."

She looked at me intently. Suddenly, her face contorted, and she cried out in pain. She sat upright, holding her head in her hands.

"Satori-san!"

"You… you're emotions…" she groaned.

"What?"

"Empty your mind!"

Her voice had approached a scream. I was shocked enough to obey. I slowed my breathing, relaxing. Empty yourself of thought, I said to myself….

My thoughts slowly slithered out of my mind. It was difficult, to say the least, and even after I managed to empty myself of thought, I was still concerned about why Satori was in pain.

Silence drew itself over the two of us for nearly a minute. Nothing was heard above Satori's labored breathing.

Eventually, she began to level out. Her face relaxed, and her breathing slowly grew back to normal.

"What…." I said slowly. "What happened?"

"Emotions… I get painful headaches if I read emotions that grow too strong." One of her eyes was still closed in discomfort as she stood to face me. "You were expressing extreme amounts of regret and adamancy. It was surprising."

I didn't know if that was supposed to be a compliment or not.

"But I can see through your emotions that you are true in your intentions. Although I do not know you, I believe I can at least trust you to not harm Okuu." She looked at me with a strangely relaxed face. "I cannot change my opinion so quickly, but perhaps you surface people are not as bad as I may think you are. Perhaps I should try and listen to Koishi's stories more."

"Koishi?"

"My younger sister."

"Who's just come home, big sis!" shouted a voice from the open hole in the wall.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

*Bring back the spell cards lost in the heart!

**Power of love, charge my laser and eradicate my enemy!

***Revel in the destruction of the blood red soul!

****The speed of illusion is the most powerful offense!

Two new cards, and two repeats. If only it could be that simple all the time. But like it matters.

See? I told you I would be cheesing the battle. But I do sort of raise a good point that is also expressed on TVTropes: Satori relies on her mind-reading ability _a lot_. So try to hit her with something you literally do not (or _cannot_, in this case) have to think about, and she's good as gone. Also, the mind is a terrible thing to read, and overpowering emotions are one reason why. It's a wonder how some mind-readers can go around picking through thoughts without being swamped by the various feelings and weights that accompany them.

Yes, I pulled a pretty big Deus Ex Machina here, considering how Nitori and Aya jumped in to save Kaito's ass like that (both usages of magic are also the same as from the actual game). Still, if you think about it, how the hell were all 6 scenarios of SA able to offer help to Reimu and Marisa in the first place? Established magical connection could explain it, but...

Well, regardless, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. The sealed sister and crow of catastrophe are next~ Just as a forewarning, the crow will be portrayed in quite a different way than normal...


	14. Chapter 14: Younger, Elder, and Pet

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 14: Younger, Elder, and Pet**

Koishi was almost exactly identical to Satori in terms of looks, and yet everything was also, in terms of color palette, completely different. A black hat topped gray-green hair. Her blouse was an orange-yellow, and her dress went from white to emerald-green going from top to bottom, with strange, swirling patterns within the green. She also possessed a third eye, this one blue, over her heart, but hers was different; The cords ran down to two blue hearts on her ankles instead of her wrists, and the eye was closed.

She skipped right over to us like the most sprite-like girl in the world, without a single care in the world, and threw her arms around Satori.

"How have you been, One-san?" she asked cheerfully.

"I've been fine, Koishi," Satori said, wrapping her arms back around her sister. I immediately noticed something wrong; Satori was smiling, but for some reason, her smile didn't seem very real, and her eyes reflected sadness. It was a face that had the word 'fragile' written on it. "Has wandering the world been doing you good?"

"Oh, lots of it!"

Then she let go slightly, and her eyes fell on me, and I could practically see the green in them brighten. "And who's this cutie over here? Is he your new boyfriend, sis?"

Both Satori and I turned bright red at the same time. And we both spat out, at the exact same time, "No way! Are you crazy?"

I raised an eyebrow at her. She looked at me like _I_ was the one who was insane all of a sudden.

_Come on,_ I thought, knowing Satori could hear it. _Both of us are thinking the exact same thing. Don't give me that look._

I was pretty sure she let out a quiet "Tch."

Koishi just shrugged, detached herself from Satori, and threw her arms around my shoulders instead. "Oh, that's a shame. So what's your name, mister?"

"Uh… Kaito. Nice to meet you, Koishi-san." She had given up on that notion that quickly.

She giggled. "Have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Huh?" Seen me somewhere before? No way… I'd never seen Koishi around, so how could she have met me?

"We haven't? Oh well. Nice to meet you too!"

Suddenly, she started leaning in closer. I nearly didn't react in time to put my hand in front of my face so she would kiss me in the palm. I _really_ didn't want another terrible misunderstanding, and suddenly getting kissed by someone's sister was practically a surefire way to get killed in this case.

When she realized I had stopped her, she pouted. "Oh, you're no fun!"

Then her face brightened in an instant. "But whatever!"

And she wandered off deeper into the mansion.

"Er…" I turned to face Satori. Her face was now completely sorrowful. "I'm guessing Koishi-san is always like this?"

She nodded. "You do not realize what it means to have her third eye closed like that, Kaito-san. This third eye of ours shows that we have our hearts open to the world around us. It is the reason I am able to read minds. It is our link to reality, so to speak."

I gasped. "So when you close your eye…."

"You are closing your heart to the world."

Those words burned themselves into my mentality. I almost couldn't imagine it at all. Completely shutting oneself away from everything and everyone, not having a single care in the world; it was deplorable, even. Despite the fact that Koishi seemed more or less perfectly normal, I couldn't help but feel some kind of pity in me.

"Because she has closed off her heart," Satori continued, "Not even I can read what it says. She is completely immune to my abilities."

She raised a hand to wipe away a tear that was about to come. "It's absolutely dreadful. It feels like I've been shut away from my only sister. My only company in this world aside from my pets."

That was something I could imagine, and something I did not like imagining. To be sealed off that way would probably kill me.

"But I am slightly happy about her travels." A ghost of a smile returned to her face. "The more she continues to wander, the more she will open up her heart to others. I'm hoping that one day, she will be able to have her heart open once again."

"Why did she close her eye in the first place? That basically means she sealed off her ability to read minds, right?"

"That's _exactly_ why she closed her eye. She didn't like the way I was hated by all but animals. So she closed herself from the world in order to avoid that. Animals no longer loved her, but people no longer hated her. And because her heart is closed, she does not feel the same way we do. She became carefree, always cheerful, never worrying about anything around her. And she has been that way ever since."

"And how long ago was that?"

"So many years, I've lost count."

I shivered at that.

Satori shook her head, chuckling. "It's strange," she said. "I've never told anyone this much about my sister before, and I certainly never expected to tell it to someone like you, Kaito-san."

"I never expected to learn this much, either."

"But it really is for the best. The more you learn about this place, the better. I believe that was what Yukari told you before sending you to the Youkai Mountain."

I nodded.

Satori smiled slightly. "Enough chat. I believe it's time for you to meet my pet, Okuu."

* * *

I had to give Satori some credit; the palace was nearly as large as the Scarlet Devil Mansion, even without the spatial augments. In contrast to the Victorian style of wood and plaster, the Palace of Hell was mostly stone, with multiple decorations from older time periods: Some old Eastern weapons, a painting hanging on the occasional wall, there really was a lot. Slowly, I was able to identify several of the weapons to be from an older Japan: katana, naginata, you name it, it was probably there. So Gensokyo was some sort of Japanese location?

"It's not all like that, you know."

"What do you mean, Satori-san?" She really couldn't stop herself from reading other people's minds, could she? "Everything I've seen up to this point is Japanese, save for the Scarlet Devil Mansion."

"True, but it's not as you think."

I wasn't exactly sure how that worked, but I decided not to press the issue. I was still stumbling a little as I walked through the corridors due to my legs. The burns on my legs, while not very heavy, occasionally sent pangs of discomfort up my body.

After walking through a couple more doors, we came to a single large gate that could have accommodated an elephant. She pushed it open like it was normal-sized. "Okuu is right inside," Satori said. "You may want to be careful."

It wasn't like I really needed to be warned, but the way Satori said it concerned me. I let out a breath, and walked through.

The room was so large, that it was hard to tell that it wasn't the actual center of the mansion, even though it was all the way in the back. The walls were lined with what might have been murals. The floor was covered in old drawings that once depicted something grand, but were dull and peeling with age, making it impossible to tell what the original picture might have been.

A single girl with thigh-length black hair stood in the center. Over her back was a long, white cape, draping over a pair of black raven wings. Only one of her limbs could have been deemed "normal" by most standards. Her left arm was normal, while the other three limbs were different one way or another. Her lower right arm up to the elbow was completely replaced by what could have been an orange arm cannon. A boot-shaped block of concrete (at least, I thought it was concrete) encased her right foot, while three rings of two or three electrons circled the other foot.

Gee, talk about asymmetry.

She didn't seem to have noticed me walking in, as she was completely fixated on something on the floor. I didn't dare walk any closer. Instead, I waited until Satori had come inside and closed the door before following her.

"Okuu!"

The girl's head turned, and her hazel eyes suddenly brightened. "Mistress!" she called out.

When she turned, my jaw nearly dropped. Aside from a large green hair ribbon, a white green-trimmed blouse, and a green skirt, there was a single large red cat's eye in the center of her chest. It was a perfectly cut circle, with a black eye in the center. All I could wonder was how the hell it got stuck there. Or if it was even stuck there by an outside force in the first place.

Okuu floated over (literally floated. Her feet didn't touch the ground at all) and gave Satori a hug. "Are you okay?" She released her grip and gave a look of concern. "I heard explosions outside. You're not hurt are you?"

"I'm a little hurt, but it's nothing I can't handle."

"Oh. Okay, then."

She looked at me expectantly. "And who's he? I've never seen him before. Koishi said he was your boyfriend."

Satori gave me a look. She wasn't amused. I just shrugged.

"No," Satori said simply. "He's not. We told Koishi that as well."

"Oh, that's too bad. He doesn't look that bad."

Once again, Satori and I turned red. That was a weird compliment to receive….

"So what's your name?" she asked me.

"My name is Kaito. Pleased to meet you." In an offhand way, I managed to notice that there was a space-themed pattern on the inside of her cape. Then I realized that the entire pattern of stars and galaxies was _moving independently._ An infinite scrolling universe inside of a cape. That was just plain awesome.

"Pleased to meet you too!" She held out a hand. "I'm Utsuho."

I shook her hand.

"So did you need something, Satori-sama?"

"Yes. Kaito here has a favor to ask of you."

"You do?" Utsuho looked at me expectantly.

"Well, yeah," I answered uneasily. Now that I was actually here, I wasn't totally sure how I was supposed to word this. "I came down here to the Hell of Blazing Fires to ask you about the electrons encircling your foot."

"My electrons?"

"Yes. I'm here on the request of a kappa above ground. She wishes to power a machine that will be able to spread the power of electricity across Gensokyo, and she needs the power of one of your electrons to operate the machine."

Utsuho looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose that would be able to work. My electrons would be able to generate more than eno-"

I didn't hear the rest of the sentence. A blaring alarm drowned her out. A massive yellow symbol flashed on the back wall. It looked familiar to me for some reason….

"Argh!" Utsuho cried out. "What now?"

She floated back over to her spot in the center of the room. Satori and I followed.

The center of the room turned out to look like a pool of water. It reflected an image of an empty wasteland with flames raging around with reckless abandon.

"What's this?" I asked.

"The former Hell of Blazing Fires," Satori answered. "This is basically what Hell used to look like before certain… you could say 'regulations'… were set in place, which is why you see what you do today. This is a portal leading to that other realm, as it still occasionally acts up and causes chaos."

"Wait, so if the old Hell occasionally acts up, then who-"

"Utsuho is the one who keeps watch over it. She has the power to control nuclear fusion; perfect for keeping the fires of the old Hell under control."

"And it's time for me to do my job," Utsuho declared. She leaped into the pool, and it hardly rippled as she passed through.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

Wow, this chapter barely missed going lower than 2000 by about 30-40 words. That was a close call...

Hey, what happened to the insane ditz of a hell raven we all came to know and love? Well, that Utsuho went and disappeared for a little while. Just wait; when you find out why I made her this way, it's probably going to be pretty heart-breaking (hell, I practically broke my own heart when I wrote it out. Apparently, I'm a sap for my own writing. How conceited).

Yeah, my interpretation of the inner workings of Hell is quite different from what the game shows. I mean, in the actual games, the Hell that Utsuho and crowd live in is the _old_ Hell, while the _new_ Hell is the one dictated by the Yama and such. Even in SWR, Utsuho's win quote against Komachi says that she's curious about what the new Hell looks like.

Basically, with my interpretation, the new Hell is the one that the SA crowd lives in, while the other Hell described by the Yama is a different one. Or at least, in a lower level or something like that.

The rage in hell comes next. Oh man, this is going to be a long wait...

Either way, hope you enjoyed the chapter~


	15. Chapter 15: Brawl In A Blazing Arena

Author's Note: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 15: Brawl In A Blazing Arena**

For a couple seconds, nothing was visible except the pure white of her cape. Eventually it zoomed out to include Utsuho, and then the burning landscape, with her figure silently dropping into it.

"Okay, so Utsuho was put in charge of the old Hell…" I said simply as I watched her descend. "How the heck is she supposed to control it? You said her powers lay in nuclear fusion, and unless that involves the ability to control fire, I don't think she's-"

"Oh don't worry," Satori assured me. "I've watched her do this before. Normally, Utsuho exercises full control over all of the old Hell, and she's able to regulate the fires on her own. However, the reason the old Hell acts up is because fire demons are causing chaos, and trying to break out."

"So this gateway also-"

"-acts as a jail cell. Exactly."

"Then how does she keep the fire demons quiet?"

"She fights fire with fire."

Eventually, it looked like Utsuho had touched the ground in the former Hell. The fires had grown larger now, and looked like they were moving independently. Like they weren't just fires anymore, but rather beings cloaked in flames. The demons.

In a second, a fight broke out. But the pool was apparently too far, and couldn't zoom in or anything, so neither of us could see much of anything. The fact that everything except Utsuho was pretty much the same color as everything else didn't really help. Fire was leaping all over the place, and all Utsuho looked like she was doing was messing with her-

"It's not an arm cannon, Kaito-san."

"Well, if it's not, then w-"

"It's a control rod. For controlling nuclear fusion, and the two devices on her feet. You didn't think she would be left with no way to control her abilities, did you?"

Honestly, I did.

Satori sighed. "Watch and learn."

After another couple seconds of fiddling, Utsuho pointed her control rod at the nearest living flame. It suddenly stopped in place, and began to disperse, shrinking in size at a fantastic rate. Eventually, what used to be a flame demon was now not even visible, if there was anything left at all.

Just as she finished, a second demon was set upon her, ready to roast her alive. She kicked out with her concrete-encased foot, knocking it a good distance away. Before it could recover, she jumped forward and stabbed her rod into the center of the beast. She tapped a command on her control rod, and in an instant, the demon detonated, scattering its flames across a small radius of the wasteland.

"In order to understand what is happening," Satori explained, "You must know this; flame demons are beings comprised of nothing but fire, with a single magic ruby core sustaining it. The ruby animates the fire into a living beast, and provides the energy necessary to maintain the demon's form. Do you understand?"

"So…." I thought about how she had just gotten rid of two demons at once; the first by shrinking it, the other by blowing it up.

Then I understood. "She damaged the core of the first with nuclear fusion explosions so it couldn't retain its form and disappear. The second one, she forced a quick, powerful reaction with her control rod and did the exact same thing."

"Correct. This is how she usually disposes of them."

"Usually?"

"Occasionally, she has to get a little… rougher than usual. Hopefully she does not need to, though I'm thinking it may be an inevitability."

I looked at her oddly. She was visibly worried.

"The demons… they're larger this time than before.

Upon gazing back into the pool, I could immediately sense trouble. There was a great number of demons, and now Utsuho was spending more time dodging than destroying. If distances were anything to gauge size off of, then the demons were at least twice her size. They had somewhat-human shapes, with massive hands the size of a human head.

"That's supposed to be 'larger than normal' by these standards?"

"I'm afraid so…."

After several more tense seconds of watching, she kicked one of the demons into the air and aimed her control rod at the demon. A single beam the size of a thick shaft of bamboo suddenly jettisoned out the end and punched its way through the demon. The demon instantly dissipated, its power source apparently gone.

"I thought you said that her control rod _wasn't_ an arm cannon," I pointed out.

Satori said nothing. I sort of felt a little jealous that I couldn't hear what _she _was thinking at that moment.

Then things started turning south really fast. A demon managed to sneak up behind Utsuho and land a grazing blow against her arm. She responded by kicking out with a nuclear-infused concrete foot, but her back turned on another demon, and she was hit again. Now I was getting worried; what would happen if they overpowered her?

She was thrown back to her dodging tactics again, but she didn't have much room for it. The demons were getting faster, more powerful. If she flew off for a minor reprieve, the demons were quick to follow. Even all the space within the former Hell wasn't enough.

I gritted my teeth. When I looked over to Satori, her eyes were worried too.

All of a sudden, a small part of my brain seemed to snap into place. Or rather, out of place. I wasn't sure why, but it seemed to say _Screw this. I'm not going to just let this happen._

Satori was so surprised to hear that thought that she couldn't even react before I jumped right into the pool.

I was jumping right into the deepest pit of Hell.

* * *

The water was a cool, washing over my body as I passed through. Then I felt the heat.

Imagine being stuffed in an oven turned up to a couple hundred degrees thrown over an open fire.

That was more or less what I felt right at that instant. The usual need for humidity did not apply here; the air was heavy with heat that drenched itself over your body like a thick quilt. _Everything_ on and around me felt like it was burning. Normally, thin clothing helped fight off the heat. That rule didn't apply here either. My robe was drenched in sweat at record speed, then dried off just as fast. If I wasn't careful, I was going to die of dehydration, not heat, though both were highly possible.

I may as well have been on fire. My mind instantly started rewiring my earlier notion; this was a _horrible_ idea. Fire was dangerous, especially in excess; I needed to get out now!

Still, for some reason, the part that had snapped out in the first place simply refused to let itself get fixed. I wasn't going to leave without Utsuho.

By some force of will, I floated down closer to the ground. I immediately wondered how Utsuho was able to stand all this. She was a raven after all. Didn't birds hate heat?

Then again, she was what should have been called a hell raven. That, and she had the powers of nuclear fusion, so maybe she was using that ability to keep the heat off her with some kind of heat shield?

That didn't really matter, though.

Then my mind had a funny thought. Probably because the heat was quickly starting to get to me.

They really should install air conditioners around here.

The demons all had their sights set on Utsuho, so none of them saw me descending deeper and deeper into the pits of the former Hell. After a certain distance, I stopped, not willing to go further. I was still at least twenty meters above ground.

_How the hell am I supposed to help?_

Then, from a small crowd of demons, Utsuho broke out and took flight. She was in a pretty bad state; parts of her clothes were burned, and she looked bruised like a physical fight had happened.

She instantly noticed me. "Kaito-san?" she shouted. "You shouldn't be in here, it's too dangerous!"

"You're not going to die in here if I have anything to say about it!"

As if to try and prove my statement wrong, the demons began to chase after her. As in, started flying. Man, they were really getting powerful.

At least now, I didn't have to worry about participating in a ground battle with them.

When Utsuho turned away to divert them away from me, I did what I could to draw some of them onto me. "Hey, you damn demons! Haven't had human in a long time, right?"

About four demons turned at once (I was surprised they had been able to hear me at all). Apparently, seeing a tasty human morsel floating there was enough to draw away their attention, and they came after me.

As I flew away, I instantly began trying to solve my next dilemma; how the hell was I supposed to destroy them? Getting close was suicide; they'd burn me up in an instant. I didn't have any ranged moves other than the two remaining spell cards Aya gave me, and I was planning to save those.

But as I continued to flee, I came to terms that using one wouldn't be so bad, so I began flying straight upward, knowing which one I would use, and how.

The demons continued to follow. They were continuing to grow bigger and bigger. Their forms were still less than human, with nothing but a wisp of flame making up the bottom half. Now that I had a closer look, the demons looked about as large as an overweight man, with hands the size of small tables (the disproportionality was shocking). The rubies in their chests glowed with an unholy red light. They reminded me of Remilia's eyes, and that wasn't a very good memory.

When I considered them close enough to be directly below me, I stopped and pulled out a second spell card. It broke apart just as I called out its name.

"_風のブレードは、わたしの下に立つものを離れてスラッシュ！__Thrust Sign: Tengu's Macroburst!"_

That helped me come to terms with something; screw the rules. Apparently, these cards could be used anytime, anywhere, and the calling of a duel was just for the non-lethality factor.

I curled up into a ball. Then my feet thrust downward, and a massive burst of wind jettisoned from the thrust of magic. The seemed to take the form of multiple blades of wind meshed together to form a single, intense blast.

I was right about the wind being formed like blades; the demons didn't stand a chance. The initial wind blew away some of their fire, and then the blades promptly sliced into their ruby centers, shattering three of them on the spot.

The burst of flame that dispersed nearly burned me. As it was, the edges of the robe were charred, and my skin was tingling.

Only one remained, its ruby cracked from the sharp wind. The damage to its crystal center had left it considerably smaller than before; now it was closer to my own size.

"You're mine now!"

I dropped down to level height. A large hand about the size of a dinner plate came at me like a snail. My hand thrust out and blasted the ruby to pieces. In a second, the fourth demon as gone.

_Alright, four down, and a bunch more to go._

I chased after the crowd that was going after Utsuho. They were still growing at a steady rate. If we didn't shut them down soon, then things were going to get really messy. But what was making them grow so fast?

I counted about five or six left, though I was pretty sure there were more. That was going to be a problem. I didn't want to use my last spell card, so how was I supposed to help out? Play the bait?

Yeah, right.

I got up as close as possible without lighting myself on fire. The demons were only about ten to twenty meters behind Utsuho. If I didn't intervene now, then she was going to get fried. Getting incinerated was no longer my concern.

"Get the hell away from her!" I shouted, readying my right hand for a palm blast.

What I didn't do was hit them with another explosion, since I was too far. What happened instead was a stream of energy leaving my _left_ hand, which I had been holding in front of me. Something came out from my hands, and a massive cloud of steam burst to life.

_What the…?_

The steam vanished from the intense heat. One of the demons was now the size of a small child. Two others had shrunken to the size of overweight men, compared to their gorilla-like sizes from before.

It didn't take long for them to turn on me and begin another chase. Truthfully, this was a good thing, because I was taking their eyes off Utsuho, but I had no idea how I had cause steam to appear. It didn't make any sense. Where had the water come from?

Wait a second….

After I had fled a decent distance away, I threw out my left hand a second time, the same way I had before.

A surge of power left my hand once more, and a volley of water bullets, the same ones Patchouli had used, charged at the demons. They were hit full force; the tiny one disappeared completely, extinguished. The other ones were now the size of young adolescents.

Normally, in a situation like this, I would be filled with thoughts of confusion. In a sense, I still was, but after so much happening, I supposed that the feeling was a little more subdued now.

At the same time, I had just gained a really useful weapon against these demons, so I wasn't really panicking. More like, I was thinking _Sweet!_

Time to do some damage.

Immediately, I shot out two more volleys of water. The two remaining demons were blasted head-on, and extinguished completely. Their ruby cores dropped towards the floor, devoid of flames to animate. Hopefully, they would shatter once they hit the floor.

No longer distracted, I went back to chasing Utsuho. The demons were still gaining speed, though they were fewer in number now. Thankfully, they still hadn't caught up (Ustuho apparently managed to do a good job keeping them away), but that was the least of our problems. Beams of nuclear energy were shooting out of Utsuho's control rod, but they weren't doing any good; the demons were too swift for her to land a solid hit.

The way she was being chased, the group eventually came all the way back around, nearby where I was. I flew in so I was at Utsuho's side.

"Not doing so well, I suppose?" I asked. Utsuho was a little more banged up now. A couple burns were more pronounced, and a few new ones had appeared as well.

"Not really, no," she agreed. "The demons never grew this fast before. It doesn't make any sense…."

"Guess that means my help was necessary, wasn't it?"

"Definitely. You don't mind helping take down the last few, do you?"

"Of course not. Shall we?"

She nodded. Suddenly, she groaned in pain, holding her head.

"You okay, Utsuho?" Why was she holding her head when she was more or less covered in burns everywhere else? Or was I just completely missing the point?

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

Both of us pulled the brakes, allowing the demons to continue their rush. In only a couple seconds, they had us surrounded. There were only seven of them left.

I pressed my back up against Utsuho's. The chances looked about decent, but these guys were really huge now.

"Think we'll be able to handle these seven?" I asked.

"Maybe," she answered calmly. Then she threw in "Might be difficult if one more shows up."

I chuckled. It was weird; we were about to fight off seven fire demons more than twice our sizes, and could move fast enough to dodge beams of nuclear energy, and we were exchanging pointless banter. Were we _trying_ to get ourselves killed?

On top of that, this tiny exchange struck a small chord in my memory. I decided to let my instinct take over for that moment, and responded "Then that'll be the one I take care of."

Utsuho laughed a bit. "Who said you had to be the one to take care of it?"

The banter was over. It was time to fight.

But we never even got the chance to continue.

Suddenly, the demons began to writhe uncontrollably. Their forms became completely convoluted, twisting around like they were being stirred around in pots.

"What the…" Utsuho said.

Neither of us did anything during the process. The fires slowly shrank smaller and smaller, until almost nothing but the rubies were left. Were they being sucked into them or something?

"Has this ever happened before?" I asked.

She shook her head.

Then, the fires all burst back out at once. They were no longer the sizes of large bears. It was like their power was being contained, and now they seemed to be around the same size and shape as normal adult humans. One of the demons right in front of me, in a strange way, looked like it could have been _feminine_ (There were female demons in that crowd? I never even knew)_._ Where there had only been wisps of flame were now replaced with actual legs. The rubies were no longer visible; sheathes of flame had completely covered them up.

Then something even weirder happened. One by one, a tear opened itself on the "faces" of each demon. A wave of sound came as all of them _breathed._

"Oh, man, I can speak now!" one suddenly shouted in a gruff tone.

"Yeah! This is awesome!" responded another.

"It's been so long since I had a voice!" a third replied, this one female.

Oh no….

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

*Blades of wind, slash away those who stand beneath me!

Oh boy, this just gives "out of the frying pan and into the fire" a new spin on it, huh?

Well, lame joke aside, I basically just made seven flame demons cross the bishonen line, so that's still pretty bad.

Pointless banter? Ha! I'd think not! You just emulated three of the most badass lines to have ever been said by (arguably) _the_ two most famous characters of all of Final Fantasy.

Three guesses as to who I'm talking about, and from what game. The first two don't count.

It's time to wrap up the main event of Hell next. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	16. Chapter 16: Insanity Break

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 16: Insanity Break**

The demons could speak now.

They had crossed some kind of unseen line, and suddenly gained ridiculously humanoid appearances and the power of speech.

Seriously, could things get any worse?

"Well, this is just great, isn't it?" Utsuho pointed out bluntly.

I nodded.

"So what do you guys think we should do with these two?" the first one said. "There're seven of us. We could mop the floor with these two."

"Why bother?" debated the second one. "We've been locked up for too long. Let's get some fresh air first!" General assent followed its words.

"But that one," the feminine one pointed out, with a fiery finger directed at Utsuho. "She's been troubling our siblings for several months. Why not at least take out the jailer?"

I could feel Utsuho tense at those words. She was prepping up for the possibility of a close encounter with the demons in the next few seconds.

"Yeah!" cheered the rest.

Okay, it wasn't a possibility; it was an inevitability.

The very first one to speak held up a both hands. "Alright, everybody," he said. An independent fire spawned between his open hands. "Let's burn them up!"

As one, the seven demons threw out seven large fireballs.

"Move!" I shouted. As one, Utsuho and I jumped upwards in altitude, barely grazing the fireballs as they flew by. Another volley came at us, and we fled. They gave chase.

Not good. If they could speak now, then our execution was only a little bit of teamwork away.

"Get going, Utsuho-san," I commanded. The demons continued pelting us with a steady stream of fireballs as they pursued us. "These guys are after you, not me. Get out of here and find help."

"Are you insane? They'll burn you to a crisp."

"At least I can hold them off for a while. Maybe even thin their numbers for you to take care of later."

I wasn't sure what spurred my instincts to say that. Maybe dehydration was really getting to me now.

Apparently, Utsuho would have none of that. "No!" she denied. "This is my job, and I'm not going to let you get killed trying to help out, got that?"

I sighed. "Should have expected that," I mused. "Okay, fine, but I'm here to protect you on Satori-san's behalf, and I intend on doing that, alright?"

She nodded.

"Then get moving!"

I followed her as we began a wild goose chase around the entirety of Hell.

By some unspoken consent, I took the back line, standing between Utsuho and the other demons. Rapid-fire water volleys came from my hand, trying their best to extinguish the fireballs before they hit, or wash out the demons. Not many fireballs came directly our way, but the ones that did never made it. Not one of the demons was getting hit though; they were simply too fast. Utsuho occasionally sent a beam of energy lancing through the crowd. None of her attacks worked either.

"Come on! Where are you going, you two?" jeered one of the female demons.

"It's no fun if you just run!" added a male one.

"Neither is getting burned to cinders!" I shot back, punctuating it with two more water volleys.

Then I noticed something wrong. I only counted five demons.

My fear came true only a second later, when I accidentally crashed into Utsuho, who'd stopped. "Oof! What the…"

"You're gone!"

_Crap!_ "Get out of the way!"

Two of the demons had circled around in an attempt to flank us. Running into Utsuho was the second mistake I made in that sense. Utsuho had failed to fend them off with her powers, and now they were up close and personal, ready to make firewood out of us. I pulled Utsuho back and attempted to block the incoming shots, crossing my arms and snapping my eyes shut.

FWOOSH!

When I reopened my eyes, the flames had dispersed. The sleeves of the robe had been burned off, leaving nothing but charred remains at my elbow. My arms felt like they were on fire. In a way, they were, but of course, they weren't actually lit on fire. All I felt was a painful sting in my arms, and I noticed, in a slightly disgusted and weirded out manner, that all my arm hair had been singed off. I had maybe a first or second degree burn.

That didn't really explain why I was able to block two fireballs shot point blank at us and come off no worse for wear, though.

Not like I was going to complain about it. The two demons, sure enough, were just as surprised as me. I seized the element of surprise, and unleashed a torrent of water straight into the chest of one.

"Gyargh!" the demon screamed. The water had done its job. Mostly. A large hole appeared in its chest; most of its body remained intact, since it had mostly only affected the center. The ruby was held up by nothing more than a few tendrils of embers.

I instantly saw it as a chance to get rid of one of the demons. My hand shot out, but instead of attempting to blast the ruby to pieces, I grabbed it. It was small enough to fit in my palm, but to the touch, it was like I was holding molten lava. I suppressed the urge to yell, and, with great effort, tore the ruby from its fiery veins.

Several sounds of snapping confirmed the disconnection. The demon screamed once more, and evaporated in under three seconds. The ruby, no longer attached to its heat source, cooled off in the same amount of time.

"Yes!" I cried in victory. "One down, six to go!" I pocketed the ruby. Maybe it would be a good souvenir for later.

The other demon screeched indignantly. "You're going to pay for that!"

"Not a chance!"

A whoosh of air, and suddenly, Utsuho came down from above, slashing with her control rod. The demon managed to dodge in time somehow. I saw another chance, and shot another blast of water. This one also found its mark.

Another scream. Utsuho took the initiative, stabbing with her control rod. A geyser of constant energy shaped like some sort of pyramid was projecting from the end. The ruby within was instantly shattered.

"And that makes two!" Utsuho said triumphantly as the demon dissipated. We high-fived.

The other demons weren't happy, to say the least, and unleashed roars of anger to say so.

Utsuho groaned. "Damnit, this is really getting on my nerves. We need to finish this quickly. Argh!" She was holding her head again.

"Are you sure you're feeling alright?" I asked again.

"Y-yeah. I'll be fine. But it's about time we ended this."

Her gem flashed briefly, and a yellow card now floated in front of her. I noticed that on one of the sides was a print of the same symbol that had appeared back in the entrance room. She grasped it firmly as it melted into her hand.

"Guard me for a quick moment, will you?" she asked. "I need a few seconds to charge this card."

"Got it."

She closed her eyes in focus.

I whirled around her to face the remaining demons. "Come on!"

"With pleasure!"

They spread themselves out so that every single one was within my field of vision, but at different corners. This was going to be difficult….

As one, they began to shoot. I did my best to fend them off. Most every attack was met a quick spritz of water in response, and I dodged where I could if the projectile wasn't in danger of hitting either me or Utusho, but for all my efforts, it wasn't enough. They were getting stronger, faster. The fireballs came in quicker streams, taking less time before another one came my way.

Eventually, one fireball managed to worm its way through my defense, heading right for Utsuho. I almost didn't see it in time to rush in and raise my arms in a block. This time, my eyes were open so I could see what happened; it felt just like the first time, but now I saw an aura surrounding my arms like an armored shell. Perhaps due to distance, this fireball vanished without the subsequent pain. Since when did I learn to do that?

"Get out of the way, Kaito-kun!"

After one more spurt of water, I dodged to the left.

"_地獄のカラスの速度は、核融合の力によって後押し！__Nuclear Heat: Uncontainable Dive!"_

She burst into an aura of gold. From where I was, it looked like she had lit herself on fire with nuclear energy. The shots that came at her just sank into the aura without doing anything.

She shouted a single word. "Die!"

She shot off like a laser. I hardly even saw her move; just several beams of nuclear energy left behind as an afterimage by her awesome speed. Not even the demons were able to react fast enough.

But for all her speed and power, it lacked accuracy. She could only control her dive to a certain degree, and while she managed to run straight through two demons and destroy them on the spot, she missed the last three.

Utsuho dove through and back a total of six times, coming back to a stop nearby where she started.

Now she looked like she was _really_ in pain, holding her chest, her face contorted. I wanted to ask again, but I was sure she was going to just blow me off.

"Argh…" she panted. "One more. Just one more. This one, for good."

"Utsuho-san, stop!" I didn't ask this time. I pleaded. "You're just going to kill yourself like this. What would Satori-san think if you just burned yourself up?"

"My job is important. And don't worry… I probably won't burn up…."

I recoiled. The way she had said that….

"Damn you two!" one of the remaining three demons shouted. "How can this be? We were greater in number and strength!"

"Strength? Ha! You were hopelessly outmatched in firepower from the start, got that?" Utsuho exclaimed. Another flash from her gem, and another yellow card. "You have no hope of winning."

She didn't activate this card the conventional way. Instead, a panel on her control rod slid open, where she planted the card. It slammed shut automatically.

"Now, witness the true power of Yatagarasu's hell raven!"

She pointed her control rod at the remaining trio with absolute conviction. Oh man, this was going to be big….

My natural suspicion was proven true in an instant. The control rod began to change shape. It opened up, as if dismantling itself, with multiple metal appendages spawning from several points. They interlocked together, and looked like a four-pointed antenna, with a single, complex metal protrusion coming out the center once finished. The card hung in the air right in front of the center for a quick second before melting away and seeping into the centerpiece. A heavy wind began billowing out with brute force.

"No!" a female demon cried out. "We're not going to lose!"

That demon, along with another, charged. The last one, apparently not wanting to stick around, attempted to flee.

All proved fruitless.

"_竜の主は、私に絶対的な破壊力を付与！__Explosion Sign…."_

Now, the two that had attempted to attack realized both how stupid and truly screwed they were as the centerpiece began to form a massive orb of energy right at the tip, little bolts of electricity crackling in and out from the four points. The one that had fled chanced a glance back just in time to see and hear Utsuho scream the fatal words.

"_GIGA FLARE!"_

KWA-SHOOOOOOOOM!

My thought process ran along no other line than _Oh my god!_

Completely averting my gaze and covering my eyes did nothing to shield me from the all-consuming black hole of energy that now occupied the space. Everything burned. Even worse than the fires of Hell. The fires may as well have been a pile of fresh ashes compared to how horrendously destructive this heat felt. It was a wonder I didn't disintegrate on the spot.

It took several seconds for the actual heat to go away once it was done, and another few seconds for my ears to regain sensitivity. It felt like the sound barrier had been broken _twice_ by that card. I was going to lose my hearing at this rate.

When I turned to look back, there was little to nothing left. A large hole had bored itself into one of the opposite walls. Utsuho was floating there alone, motionless. The final three demons were gone. The fires of the old Hell looked like they were dying down, becoming smaller than before.

I was in complete awe. The terrified-till-you-crap-your-pants type, but awe all the same.

Utsuho had just taken care of nearly every single demon with only two spell cards. She had made it look easy.

So why was I still scared as hell?

The exact reason – or rather, a new one that fit the bill – came just as I wondered exactly that.

It started as mild chuckling first, but slowly, Utsuho began to laugh. It wasn't like her normal laugh, though; it was one of evil. One of insanity. It was like the steady laugh of a classic villain.

It managed to absolutely _horrify_ me.

"YES! All this power! This destruction! It's time for me to rise out of this rotten pit of fire and brimstone and conquer the world above!"

Again, her gem flashed, and a third card was soaked up, this time into her entire person.

"_爆発つ星の視線、その下にあるすべてを消費します！__Abyss Nova!"_

Her entire being began to radiate a dull yellow glow.

"All shall burn under my powers of nuclear fusion. The sun that shines upon the earth will create new atoms. My ultimate power will burn every heart, body, ghost, and fairy!"

Oh… crap! Now I knew why she said she wouldn't burn up in that sense. Using her powers so much had caused her to completely lose her sanity!

She turned to look at me with eyes twisted by power. "And I'll start by burning _you_ up! Truthfully, I'd like to eat you up now, but you still need to get all nice and fried. I just need to wait a little while longer, so you'll taste that much better!"

She charged at me, stabbing with her control rod.

I reacted surprisingly quickly; I quickly dodged in a way so my back faced her, pinned her control rod arm under my right arm, and rammed my left elbow into her face, simultaneously releasing my other arm. Utsuho was thrown downwards from the force of the blow.

"Utsuho-san, snap out of it!" I shouted.

"What are you talking about?" she said playfully. "Is it that bad to want to burn you up?"

"Yes, it's that bad! Control yourself, damnit!"

"Oh, I'll gain back control… once I burn the rest of Gensokyo to the ground and make it part of the new Hell!"

She waved a hand, and bunches of nuclear orbs materialized around her. She snapped her fingers, and they shot out all at once.

I did my best to dodge. It was like dodging through a wave of cannon shots. One after the other, they came at me with unrelenting force. There were almost too many; one managed to clip my hip, and another very nearly hit my head. One managed to land a solid hit, exploding on my left leg, and leaving a deep burn on it.

Geez! If I didn't do something fast, I was going to die down here, and the rest of Gensokyo would follow.

Once the wave of bullets was gone, I moved to dive in close. Utsuho responded in kind. But she didn't get to me; instead of meeting her head on, I shot out a quick stream of water bullets.

The bullets were indiscriminate about targets, and Utsuho was blown back a small distance, stunned. I didn't let up with the assault, nailing her with a second volley.

When that was finished, I got up close and personal. I pulled out a quick combo of hits: a left hook, uppercut, double kick, and ending with a double palm. The usual explosion that struck was twice as large as it was normally.

The distance between us now spanned a couple meters. But I felt like it was seriously the end. I hadn't quite noticed it before, but now my body felt like it was deteriorating. Almost all my feelings of touch were gone. I could hardly even feel the burn on my leg. The fires of the old Hell were finally doing their job. Either that, or I had simply been too distracted to care. If I didn't finish this quick, then I was dead whether I stopped her or not. It was a wonder I had managed to survive this long in a place like the old Hell in the first place.

Utsuho was still laughing mad. Her yellow glow had intensified since it had begun. "You think that's going to stop me? You're dead now!"

I groaned in exhaustion.

A geyser of energy spouted from the end of her control rod once more. "Perhaps if I slice you up thinly and cook you, then you'll taste that much better!" she shouted as she lunged.

I'd had enough.

I was tired as hell, really needed a drink, and simply wanted to fall asleep.

When Utsuho attempted to run me through with her pyramid-sword, I smacked it away, and slapped her across the face. _Hard._ The sound of my palm hitting soft cheek could have been heard for a mile.

Right when she turned back to look at me with complete disbelief, I grabbed her by the arms, and shouted right into her face "Get a hold of yourself, Utsuho!"

And I crashed my head into hers with a resounding CRUNCH!

My vision swam and stars popped into my vision.

_Whoa…_ I thought, watching my visual sense of reality lose its connection. Note to self: never do that again.

Surprisingly, however, it seemed to do its job. Utsuho's weight became limp in my hands, and I was now holding her up by the shoulders.

When my sight finally returned, I looked into the face of a very beat-up, unconscious Utsuho. The glow was gone. A small stream of blood was trickling down her face; a testament to my head crash. I was pretty sure a matching stream was coming down my face as well. A bright red hand mark was plastered on her cheek. I grimaced, wondering how Satori would react once she found out I had _slapped_ her pet.

I sighed, feeling like crap for doing something like that. But if I hadn't, then the rest of Gensokyo would have been endangered. I did what I had to do, but I didn't like it.

With a resigned state of mind, I adjusted my grip so I was carrying her in my arms, and slowly but surely drifted back to the entrance.

* * *

"Okuu!"

Satori was not just fussing; she was panicking. The state Utsuho had been in when I first entered the old Hell had been bad enough. Add on the hits I had dealt her, and she was really banged up. Now that I had a chance to see her better, I saw that blood was leaking out her mouth along with the spot on her forehead, and many of the burns she had were at least at a second degree.

Man, I wish I hadn't hit her head like that.

With a thorough assessment of my own injuries, I found that a lot of my robe had been burned or charred. The bottom was completely wasted away up to my knees, and tiny holes speckled the main body. All the hair on both my legs and arms had been burned off (I was kind of disgusted upon this discovery). My left leg was aching; upon closer inspection, it looked like a third degree burn. Though it didn't seem very serious for a third degree burn, walking was _not _going to be easy.

"Wha… what happened?" She seemed to be ignoring the fact that a very obvious hand mark was stuck on her cheek.

In as few words as possible, I went through the entire battle down in the old Hell. Satori had brought in several large goblets of water some time ago (from where, I didn't know nor cared), which I gulped down heartily in between sentences.

"She… she lost control?" Her eyes began watering up. And she started to sob quietly.

Even in my state of extreme exhaustion, I managed to read exactly what the sobs were supposed to mean.

"This happened when Reimu-chan and Marisa-chan came here too, didn't it? Utsuho lost control and nearly went out to burn all of Gensokyo?"

With a grim face, Satori nodded. Between sobs, she spoke. "Okuu never had these powers until recently. The reason those two came in the first place… was because Okuu had apparently been causing trouble. When I found out… I couldn't believe it. They nearly had to… t-to put her down because of it. I would have lost her. I was happy they didn't, but they blamed everything on Okuu. The spirits and geysers coming above ground, the destruction she caused before she was stopped….

"But when she woke back up… she seemed normal. In fact, as time wore on… she became smarter. Usually, she was so simple, but after the whole incident… she became knowledgeable in nuclear fusion, and seemed more mature. It took her two months to become the way she is now, but…."

She couldn't continue, and lost herself in her sobs for a moment.

I looked on for a second. Then, even though I was completely spent, I put down my half-empty goblet and wrapped my arms around the crying Satori.

"I understand, Satori-san," I said quietly. "I'm sorry I had to do this to Utsuho-san. But she's still alive, and I know she's going to get better eventually. Don't worry; everything will get better in time."

I thought I heard Satori sob even harder. I only held her a little tighter, though I was careful not to crush her third eye. Right now, she needed comfort, and I was going to give it to her.

After several more seconds, Satori spoke once more. "Th… thank you… Kaito-kun," she choked out.

I patted her on the back, and let myself go, but I didn't release my hands from her shoulders. "The first thing she's going to see is you. You need to be there for her. But not as a master and owner. Not yet. That'll come later. Right now, she needs a friend, alright?"

She nodded.

I sighed. And I reached into my pocket, which, miraculously, hadn't been burned off the robe. And I pulled out a small vial with a strange metal contraption on the end. I crawled over to Utsuho's immobile body, and placed the metal end right up against one of the electrons circling her foot, which were all hanging still. In a couple seconds, the electron shook, then shrunk away, and sank inside of the contraption and into the vial with a small _pop_.

I was going to have to ask Nitori about that later. Seriously, how had it done that?

I could feel my strength slowly coming back to me as I slipped the vial back into my pocket and stood up. Satori was still mostly broken, but I knew she would bounce back. She was strong. So was Utsuho. Both of them would make it.

"I'll be taking my leave now. I'll leave you two alone, okay?"

She didn't say anything, but I patted her shoulder. She spoke quietly. "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Yes?"

"If you happen to see my pet Rin – a kasha with bright red hair – in any trouble, could you please help? She should be coming home soon, and I'm afraid she may get into an… an accident."

She sure had a lot of pets, didn't she? But I supposed that that was her price for being who she was; left with no company but her sister and her animal pets in a subterranean palace.

I nodded. "I will."

Before I walked out the door, I heard something. It was a quiet sound. Something like the light _caw_ of a raven.

I looked back to see Satori stroking Utsuho's hair. "It's okay now, Okuu," Satori murmured. "I'm here for you."

"Unyuu…."

I smiled, and walked out the door, showing myself out.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

*A hell crow's speed boosted by the powers of fusion!

**Lord of the dragons, grant me the power of absolute destruction!

***An exploding star will consume all beneath its gaze!

How the hell did I manage to break 4000 words in a chapter? That's new.

Either way, this chapter in particular, I like. Not because I overshot 4000 words, but rather, because it actually feels like some points of my writing are starting to develop more. Most definitely fighting-wise, I like this one better than the previous ones (though i have no clue if I actually got better or not. I'll leave that opinion to whoever reads this).

Also, this is a strange instance for me, because when I was starting to write this, I knew how some of it was going to go... sort of. But since I didn't know how I was going to piece everything together yet, I put off writing this and skipped ahead for maybe 7 chapters or so before coming back to this one. And oddly enough, it feels like my work/laziness paid off~

I characterized Utsuho quite differently, huh? With great power comes great insanity, yes, but since when did they have to be crazy all the time? It's more of the misuse and abuse of power that eventually leads to insanity, isn't it? That was the way I saw it, and made it such. Will I get dinged for that? Maybe. Depends on how crazy you usually see Utsuho to be.

Alright then, it's time to get the hell out of... well, Hell. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	17. Chapter 17: Escaping The Pit

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 17: Escaping The Pit**

Finally, I got to get out of this place. I had completely lost track of time while down here, so I needed to know what I was going to do after I was done.

Naturally, I was still really tired, and didn't feel like flying, so I decided to just walk through the city, despite the pain in my left leg. It hadn't looked that complex when I was flying over earlier, but I could still ask for directions if I ever got lost. Hopefully without getting myself eaten or something.

The many youkai I met along the way varied greatly in number and race. And strangely enough, they all looked human one way or another. Kitsune I saw looked like Ran, though most of them had fewer tails. Nekomata fell under the exact same case; they looked like Chen. Heck, I thought I might have even passed by a couple of kappa with hats just like Nitori (it made me wonder what they were doing there, since she had said her kind didn't really do well in places like this).

It didn't stop there either. I saw plenty of other kinds of creatures: tanuki, tsukumogami (apparently, a human form manifested as a user/wearer for the object in question), tengu, the list could have gone on for a while. This was what inhabited a city in Hell? I had to say, this was really impressive, the strangeness of humanoid-looking youkai notwithstanding.

For some reason, few of them seemed to notice me as I walked into the streets. Most all of them seemed busier peeking around in shops or talking with each other (not that I was complaining). The general amount of peace here caught me slightly off guard as well; I hadn't expected a mass gathering of monsters to be quite as peaceful. Perhaps that was just my personal bias working, but still.

Then, just as that thought passed my mind, I heard a crashing noise and a cry of rage.

The wave of heads that stared over could have been caught on tape. So could the thunder of footsteps.

I managed to jump into the sky before I got trampled. Guess fights or accidents didn't happen very often, and the ones that did were the subject of general crowd attraction. What happened?

I flew towards the source of the noise. Several other youkai were also traveling by air, a few of them chatting excitedly. Gee, they were really that enthusiastic about seeing this?

The source was easy to find. A large crowd surrounded a pair of people and a small, overturned cart in the middle of a narrow road. The bad part? The pair was one huge guy and a much-smaller girl.

Flying down for a closer look, I managed to identify the big guy as an oni. A single, swirling brown horn, like one of Suika's, protruded from the center of his forehead, underneath deep orange hair. The plain brown tunic and loincloth did little to hide his obvious torso muscles, but his arms and legs looked more or less normal.

The girl, I couldn't identify. She had cat ears, but she didn't have a tail. At least, not one that I could see. Her hair was bright red in color, practically bordering on pink, and it was pulled into two black-bow-tied braids. Three small skull-like spirits surrounded her with a dim, eerie blue light. Her dress was black, with various green decorations all over it. And she looked ticked.

"I already told everyone to clear the road, you know!" the catgirl said angrily.

"That doesn't change that fact you ran into me with your cart!" the oni retorted.

"Yeah, like it would be that difficult to run into someone as big and dumb as you."

"You're really asking for it, aren't you, you little kasha." He spit out the last word as if it was the worst possible insult he could think of. "Thinking you're so high and mighty with that cart all the time."

"Load up your brain with something other than fighting or drinking, you damn oni! Carting spirits is my job!"

Whoa. This was going to devolve into a physical fight soon if something wasn't done. No one else was doing anything though; probably too busy watching the spectacle. I suddenly felt the need to step in and stop this before it got out of hand.

Besides, hadn't Satori said that her pet was a kasha with bright red hair? This girl certainly fit the bill, since, if I remembered correctly, kasha were a kind of catgirl. So that would mean her name was… Rin?

I wasn't about to let one of Satori's pets get beaten to a pulp.

I dropped myself down to the center of the circle, getting between the two before they could start trading blows.

"Whoa! Hold up there, you two."

The oni took a single sniff, and made a sound of disgust. "The hell are you doing here, human? Move! This matter doesn't concern you!"

Chatter erupted immediately amongst the crowd. Apparently, a human in hell was a pretty big thing around here too.

"Well, sorry to interrupt, but I'm making it my problem, alright?"

Rin looked at me with curious eyes. "You're a human?"

"Yeah. You're Rin-chan, right? I was here to meet your master, Satori-san."

"Another strong human!"

"Another?"

"Yeah! There were two others; red-white, and black-white."

Reimu and Marisa….

"Tch, I don't care if you're strong," the oni interjected. "You're interfering, and if you're strong, then you'll put up a good fight when I'm pounding you into the ground!"

"Wait! What happened here, anyways?"

"This damned kasha ran into me with her cart over there," he said, pointing a long finger at the overturned cart, which was surprisingly undamaged.

"I already said it was an accident, stupid oni. I called for everyone to clear the road too!"

"Doesn't change the fact that Hell's Traffic Accident crashed right into me!"

"Hey, calm down," I said as soothingly as possible. The title "Hell's Traffic Accident" didn't really sound good to me.

Though I could feel a good amount of anger from both of them, they held their ground. I didn't know for how long they would do so.

"It was just an accident, right? So maybe you two could just apologize and be done with it?"

"I'm not apologizing to Hell's Traffic Accident over here!" the oni vehemently denied. "Do you even know how many crashes she's been in in the last month? This isn't the first time she's crashed into me either. There's a good reason why she deserves that title."

"Well, the next accident I'm about to cause is going to mess up your horn!"

The oni swung without warning.

I reacted barely fast enough to block the punch. The oni's fist crashed into both my hands with a resounding _crunch_. A shock of pain ran up my arm; stopping that punch was like trying to stop a boulder. I had managed to stop it, but just barely, and I was pretty sure that it very nearly broke my arms.

I was surprised that I had been able to in the first place, considering I was still completely drained of energy.

"Ngh! Hey, I can't just let you hit Rin-chan like that," I managed to utter out. Though I was a little annoyed. That statement she had said was not helping her case….

"So you're protecting the traffic accident? Fine then, I'll beat you into the floor too!"

He drew back his other fist. I wasn't ready for it; my arms were still in pain from blocking one punch.

BOOM!

The expected punch didn't hit me. Something else blocked it instead.

"I can't let you hit this boy, either," came a familiar voice.

I turned to see long, golden hair, a mature face, and a single red horn with a star on it.

"Yuugi-san!"

"Hello there," she greeted. A single arm was outstretched, holding the fist at bay. Her plate was in the other. "Been a while hasn't it?" Her voice still sounded drunk, as usual, but she looked pretty serious.

"Yuugi?" the oni asked in disbelief. "As in Yuugi Hoshiguma, one of the Four Devas of the Mountain?"

"The one and only," she confirmed.

The oni instantly backed off. His face was written with fear.

So Yuugi was someone famous, then? Damn. What other kinds of people would I meet later on?

Then the oni's lips stretched into a smile. It was a smile of borderline insanity. "I can't believe my luck!" he cheered. "Now I get to fight one of the Four Devas of the Mountain myself! And you, no less."

"Oh, so you're itching for a fight, are you?"

The oni cracked his knuckles in response. "Now I get to deal a little payback for what you did to my girlfriend two weeks ago."

"Your girlfriend?" Yuugi asked, confused.

"You dirtied her shiny blue horn by making her eat dirt! Even after days of cleaning it, she couldn't work off the grime."

"Oh, that girl. She interrupted my mid-afternoon drinking session that Tuesday when she threw a white tiangou at me."

"GRAAAH!" His massive fist came flying again.

BOOM! She blocked the punch a second time, again with only one arm. She let out a small sigh, then turned away and took a sip out of her plate. She didn't bother putting it down when she was done.

The look she dealt back to the oni was enough to make him recoil again. I would have been pretty terrified too, if I wasn't still reeling from the fact she was a really famous person. "And you should know no one interrupts my drinking sessions. And right now, you're cutting into one."

In a single motion, she pushed down his arm and punched him in the chest. The oni was sent flying at least a good twenty feet. Quite a few unfortunate youkai were knocked to the ground by the unexpected projectile. I was pretty sure at least one had been squashed completely underneath him.

"But I won't turn my back on a good fight. I hope you can keep me entertained."

Every single other youkai or monster that hadn't been flattened stepped out of the way immediately as Yuugi continued to advance.

Holy crap… Yuugi just punched that guy straight down the road like he was nothing by a child's toy. How big was he supposed to be anyways? That was pretty ridiculous!

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. "You're a friend of the great Yuugi-sama?" Rin whispered into my ear.

"Yeah," I whispered back. "Long story though. You should get out of here while you can. Grab your cart."

"I… I can't."

"What?" I looked at Rin, who stared back with worried red eyes. "Why?"

I turned to see the cart, which looked about the size of a wheelbarrow, still turned over. I looked all the way behind me and received my answer.

"You weren't thinking of going anywhere, were you?" asked another oni, cracking his knuckles.

Oh, that was just great. Now what?

I was about to start panicking, since there were about four or five of them standing in line, all of them at least a head taller than me. My chances didn't look good.

Then I remembered my last spell card. And then I realized that the fact they were standing all in a line made it perfect.

"Rin-chan, stay behind me," I said just as I positioned myself in front of her.

"Oh, this should be interesting," the lead one said. "The boss will be happy we got to trash both the dirty human _and_ Hell's Tra-"

"Can't you guys just lay off the nickname for once?" I said irritably.

"You got something against it, stupid human?"

"Yeah. Frankly, I do. And I also have a problem with people beating up little cat girls for accidents. I'm not going to let you touch her." I pulled out the last spell card.

The oni all burst out laughing. "How the hell is a little card supposed to help you?" the lead one said between laughs.

"You wanna see?" I dared. The card broke, and my right arm began to shake with uncontrollable power as the fragments gathered into a gauntlet around my hand.

"I'd like to see you try!"

The horned man drew back a fist. This time I was more than ready; I ducked right under it and, with my other hand, landed a palm blast right in his gut.

"Urk!" His grin vanished.

"_突風と大天狗ファンの竜巻をご体験ください_！_"_ I declared. "_Wind Sign: Wind of the Tengu Path!"_

My fist landed squarely in his chest. A giant cyclone erupted from my arm, blasting the sound barrier, along with the entire line of oni, down the road.

"Alright, Rin-chan," I said, rubbing my arm. Note to self: don't hold back power like that. It's a good way to nearly get your arm blown off. I grinned sheepishly. "That should take care of them for the time being. Grab your cart and go. Tell Satori-san Kaito said hi."

She nodded, smiling enthusiastically. With that, she grabbed her cat cart and began running towards the castle. Yuugi had gone down some other street, so a large part of the crowd had followed. Apparently, watching Yuugi beat the stuffing out of one oni trumped a human chucking five down a street. Not like it mattered, though; the rest of the youkai that hadn't followed moved well out of the way afterwards.

I sighed in relief. I hadn't quite managed to do things non-violently, but at the very least, I managed to keep Rin from getting beat up. Satori would be happy.

_Kick them to the curb, Yuugi-san._ I thought just before flying off. I really didn't need any more trouble right now.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

*Feel the gusts and tornadoes of the great tengu fan!

Whew, this chapter was a doozy. I found it hard trying to characterize Rin, mostly because I never made it past stage 4 on SA (I usually wind up dying on stage 3. Goddamnit, Yuugi). Thankfully, the TouhouWiki is quite handy for this kind of stuff. If it didn't have all the dialogues of every game translated for all to see (yeah, I don't have a translated version either, so getting to stage 5 wouldn't have helped either way), then I probably never would have managed something like this.

Then again, it's all filler anyways, so maybe it would be better to just leave this chapter out?

*thinks about it*

Nah, I'm posting this anyways. I mean hey, it's already written, so I don't see why not.

For those of you who know your Japanese mythology, you'll notice that the oni characterized here is much more violent than your average oni. Normally, they're more concerned with their personal matters than those of the outside, and aren't all inherently evil either (hence why neither Suika nor Yuugi are total jerks). However, at least in my own point of view, one can assume that if someone gets caught up in the personal matters of an oni uninvited, they're going to pay.

Unless the person getting involved is someone like Yuugi. Then that oni might get pissed for a different reason, and get the ever-loving crap beaten out of him. But for her, that day was Tuesday, so... yeah, good game.

Finally out of the fiery pits of the underground. Wonder what will happen next! Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	18. Chapter 18: Out For A Bath

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 18: Out For A Bath**

"Kaito-kun, you're back!"

I nearly fell over as Nitori tackle-hugged me once I walked through the doorway (mostly because my left leg almost crumpled under the sudden strain).

I hadn't expected to, but I made it all the way back to the workshop with little trouble or hindrance. The bridge girl, Parsee, hadn't shown up on my way out (I wondered why as I crossed the bridge on foot). Neither had that other girl who had dropped down from the ceiling. On one hand, I had gotten hit in the head by a falling bucket (I spent a good minute trying to find out where it had come from), but other than that, the trip was pretty boring.

"I was worried you might have died down there," Nitori said as she detached herself. "At some point, we couldn't contact you for some reason, so we didn't know what was going on!"

"How were you two keeping contact with me anyways?" I asked. "All of a sudden, you two just spoke to me and helped out with beating Satori-san. How?"

"Aya sent one of her crows with you. It followed behind during your time in Hell. The magical connection allowed us to communicate and help out!"

"Ah." I supposed that it sort of made sense, but that didn't really matter.

I pulled out the small vial containing the electron and handed it to Nitori. Her eyes glowed with delight.

"Now you can finish what you started."

"She accepted the vial with both hands. She looked at me with a bright smile. Even without words, she was expressing her gratitude. But she put it in words anyways. "Thank you… Kaito-kun," she said slowly.

I nodded. Helping her this way simply made me extremely happy. But it felt a little odd; at first, it was like I was sort of paying off some kind of debt, considering how I had knocked out the two people she would have asked to go instead of me.

Instead, something else was fueling my happiness now. What was it?

"I'll install it into the machine later. It's getting late."

"Oh, yeah. Right." She spoke the truth. By the time I had left the cave entrance of Hell, it was already late afternoon, approaching evening. Now, after some time wandering, trying to find the river again, it was closer to nighttime. Youkai would be prowling the night. It wasn't safe for me anymore. And Aya wasn't around to help, since she had left before my return.

Which, naturally, presented a very big problem. Since I couldn't exactly fly back to the shrine….

"Uh, Nitori-chan?" I said, scratching my head in embarrassment. I could feel the temperature rising in my face as I came to terms with what I was about to say.

"Yes? What is it?"

"Er… Well, it's nighttime now… so youkai will be coming out, right?"

"Yes. Is something wrong?"

"Uh…." My face continued to flush deeper and deeper shades of red. I couldn't look at her properly, and directed my eyes at the ground instead. I couldn't look at her, because it looked like she was reading my face and expecting something bad.

_Damnit, just say it and get it over with!_

"W-would you mind if I stayed the night here?" I said as quickly as I could.

Silence.

It was to be expected, considering the kind of favor I had just asked for from more or less a complete stranger.

When I finally tore my eyes away from the floor to look at Nitori, she was blushing madly. Also to be expected, from this kind of a favor. God, why did time have to fly so fast? And why did I have to get lost?

"I-I'm sorry, Nitori-chan. I know what I'm asking is bad, but it would be problematic for me to try and make my way back to where I was staying earlier now that night's almost upon us."

"Well, uh… w-where were you staying earlier?" she asked.

"The Hakurei Shrine."

"T-that's a long distance from here. It would be dangerous to try and go back."

"Y-yeah. And I don't think I'm strong enough to go back alone, and I don't want to ask you to accompany me. That's why I asked if I could stay."

"O-o-oh… U-uh…."

She looked away with embarrassment. Damnit, I had just stuck her with a truckload of pressure; either turn me away into a night of youkai and near-certain death, or let me stay a night with her. If only I was stronger, then I could go back myself, but….

Argh, I felt like such an idiot! Did the universe hate me or something? Why was it sticking me into so many compromising situations?

"W-w-well…."

The verdict.

"I-I suppose… s-since you can't go back… I-I wouldn't mind… i-if you stayed."

Two feelings hammered me at once immediately. The first was relief, obviously; now I wasn't going to die via humanitarian tastes at the hands of the youkai. But the second feeling very nearly trumped my initial burst of calm; I felt guilty for forcing something like this on Nitori.

"J-just for one night, though!" she added quickly.

"I know, Nitori-chan. Thank you so much."

"I-it's nothing," she said uneasily. "It's the least I could do for you… after going to… t-to hell and back j-just….f-for me."

* * *

"Uh, are you sure it's okay for us to be out here right now, Nitori-chan?"

"It should be. It's still a little early, so the youkai won't be out in full swing for a little while. Also, you really stink."

"Sorry. Between everything I've been doing, I haven't exactly had time for a bath."

"Which is why we're going out to get one right now."

I sighed in resignation. I still thought that this was a really bad idea. We were basically just walking out into the night just so both of us could bathe. If that wasn't baiting something to come and eat us, then I didn't know what was.

"Don't worry, Kaito-kun," Nitori assured, smiling. "I know a few good ponds for us to go to. Very few people ever come across them, so we'll have our privacy."

"Uh…." I _really_ wanted to point out exactly what was wrong with the way she said that, but I decided to just ignore it.

My face seemed to spell it out, though, and Nitori was, once again, turning red. "Well, w-we're not going to share the same pond, obviously, but we'll be close to each other, at least, so if anything happens…."

I smiled apologetically. I hadn't intended on giving that away so blatantly. "Sorry. I know what you're trying to say. Thanks."

I still didn't think this was a very good idea, though. Basically, if we stayed out too late, then a meeting with a youkai was an inevitability. An inevitability I simply did not want to deal with.

I really wish I had just said no to Nitori. She had gotten one whiff of me, and simply said that I needed a bath. I tried to argue, but she wasn't going to take no for an answer. Apparently, being a kappa meant being clean. Or something along those lines, at least, and I… wasn't.

Still, I didn't totally disagree with her, since I knew that going three days without bathing was pretty bad. I could practically feel the grime on me.

"So are the ponds close by, now?"

"Just another minute."

And, just as Nitori said, we came across a small pond about a third of the size of the foyer of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. The water was crystal clear, and brilliantly reflected the moonbeams under a waxing moon. It was hard to tell how deep it ran, but I guessed that I could stand up to my neck in the water.

"This will be your spot, okay?" Nitori stated.

"Uh, okay then."

She nodded, and took off her backpack. She had brought it along with some stuff inside for bathing. When I had asked about why the straps were strung through a key hanging down her midline (honestly, it was a little hard trying to ignore the way the straps crossed over her chest when I asked), she had explained that the key was used to open up her backpack, and the head could split into two distinct halves whenever she had to take the backpack off.

Nitori twisted the key through a small lock holding her backpack shut, and threw open the top. Inside was a set of two towels, and a couple small bottles filled with what I could only assume was shampoo.

Bath supplements weren't all she had though. Aside from that, there were bunches of tools and small inventions inside as well. Wrenches, screwdrivers, nuts, bolts, a couple flashlights, you name it. If it was small enough, she probably had it in there.

She pulled out a single towel and a bottle, then closed her backpack and slung it back over her shoulders. "I'll be at another pond a short walk that way." She pointed in a westward direction. "Just come by once you're done, okay?" She smiled warmly.

I nodded. "Thanks a lot, Nitori-chan."

She walked off.

I waited until I was sure she was completely gone before going ahead and undoing my robe.

* * *

Whew, that sure was a good bath. I hadn't felt so clean since I first arrived here!

The cloth of the towel felt nice and supple as I dried myself off. The water had been a little cold, so the towel felt pretty warm. But regardless of temperature, I had enjoyed my time in the water.

Still, I had taken a little more time than I had planned. The night was completely out now. Stars were shining brighter than before, and the moon was slowly creeping above the tree line. It was time to leave.

I quickly slipped myself back into the robe and gathered up the towel and shampoo.

Then, as I scanned around the pond's edge, I silently swore to myself. I had forgotten which way Nitori had gone off to. Spending too much time enjoying baths apparently made me forget things. Just great. As if my memory wasn't bad enough.

I sighed, and strained to remember. All I could remember was her pointing in some westward direction. That was it.

I looked at where the moon was heading, and gauged which way was west easily. I knew that if I didn't find the pool soon, I'd be screwed, so I took off at a brisk pace….

* * *

And slowed down again, since I was now completely, totally lost.

_Damnit, this is stupid. I could have just waited._ I sighed to myself, wondering why I hadn't just done that in the first place. But there was no point in trying to go back now, since I would probably just get more lost. No reason to dig myself any deeper.

Then the forest began to thicken. Trees were now as large as redwoods, and the grass was beginning to grow out, nearly getting as tall as my ankles. The stark contrast automatically sparked a question; what was causing the wildlife here to grow so huge?

_Seriously, this defies practically every rule of biology ever._

Then again, this was Gensokyo, so I supposed that _something_ had to be causing this in some way. Magic? Or did someone just really like plants?

Eventually, I ran into what was basically a wall of really tall grass that grew level to maybe my eyes. Really, was something in the water making them grow this way? It simply didn't make any sense at all.

I put down the towel and bottle, prepping myself to part away the grass. Something nagged at my brain, though. This kind of a situation was the exact sort of thing that could get somebody killed. The rule, I remembered, was especially particular about guys, who often looked past the grass just to find a girl bathing. Even unintentionally, the peeper usually got the living hell beaten out of him.

I shooed that part of my brain away, though. Regardless of that rule, I had to find Nitori, and if I didn't search everywhere, then how would I be sure I missed her?

I parted away the grass. I found nothing. It was another pond, yes, but the surface was perfectly calm.

I sighed, and was about to let the grass slam shut when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.

I leaned in for a better look. My heart froze.

It was a large, green backpack, hat, and a folded set of teal clothing.

Then that meant….

SPLOOSH!

Huh?

Oh… SHIT!

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

Alright, honestly, I don't really like this chapter all that much. I mean, it feels like one of two things happened; my usual zeal for writing fell down a well, or some other part of me just hit a slump. Either way, I'm not the happiest guy alive with this. It feels like I got _so damn **LAZY**_ here.

Also, I really wish this site would allow for the usage of multiple punctuation marks at the end of a sentence, because oftentimes, those types of usage can help portray certain elements of a story better, like surprise, or aggression. It gets pretty annoying at times, because there are lots of instances where i use ? and ! in tandem, and it doesn't translate into the actual document.

But, oh well. There's not much I can do about that, I suppose. Everyone's gotta hit a slump at _some_ point while writing (those who have never had one, I envy you), and it's not like the policy for punctuation is going to change anytime soon.

Besides, if I didn't have that part at the very end of the chapter, I probably would have wound up scrapping the whole thing and rewriting it. Which I didn't want to do, because honestly, I _**LOVE**_ that last part. It's the only section of maybe this entire chapter that makes me feel like I did something GOOD.

And it goes to teach a small lesson; when common sense/genre savviness tells you to _not_ look behind the wall of grass, then for god's sake, _DON'T FREAKING DO IT!_

To all accidental perverts of the world that didn't listen to that figment of common sense, I salute you. Another has joined your ranks.

Want to know what happens next? Well, you can guess, but I'm not going to say anything here. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	19. Chapter 19: Cannibal Taste Chase

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 19: Cannibal Taste Chase**

I immediately released the grass. It slammed back into place.

My hand was clapped over my mouth. I had nearly – _very_ nearly – given myself away. As it was, the loud gasp I had suddenly thrown out could have woken the dead.

I dropped to my knees in shock. My breathing was quiet, but extremely heavy. My god, I had tempted fate like an idiot by shooing away those thoughts!

Seriously, did the universe really hate me or something? I hadn't meant to think that way! I didn't want to wind up peeping on someone on accident! Damn it all!

But… still….

That was… really, _really_ hot….

I mean, damn… I knew Nitori was cute, but… holy crap….

It was like one of those moments, where it simply felt like everything was picture perfect, with not a single piece out of place. The moon refracted in the flying water droplets… the calm surface of the pool freshly disturbed by the beautiful figure bursting from it….

_Damn it, Kaito!_ I thought, physically smacking myself across the face. _Stop thinking those kinds of thoughts. She's a kappa, for god's sake!_

"Who's there?"

Oh man, it was Nitori!

I stopped breathing. As in, literally, stopped breathing.

This time, I mentally kicked myself in the butt. Physically smacking myself was _not_ a good idea.

"Hello?"

_Don't answer it. If you don't answer, then maybe nothing will happen…._

Naturally, right when that thought crossed my mind, something happened.

It was vague at first, but my ears eventually caught a strange sound, slowly growing louder and louder. What was that? Did it sound like… singing? Who the hell would be singing at a time like this?

Then it got worse. It very literally felt like I was going blind. My vision began to blur, and eventually started to black out completely. What the hell was going on? I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. Absolutely nothing. Just complete darkness. Did that singing have something to do with this? God, this was starting to hurt my head….

"W-who's doing this?" Nitori cried out, terrified. Was she blind too?

_THOK! SPLASH!_

Oh crap, what the hell was that? It sounded like someone had just….

Oh my god, _please_ tell me someone didn't just hit Nitori over the head.

I couldn't bring myself to move. I was too frightened, too panicked to move.

There was a sound of something being pulled out of water. Then the sound of wings, and slowly, the singing died away.

As the singing went away, my vision began to come back. It was like someone was slowly turning on the lights. It wasn't saying much, since it was night time right now, but it felt a lot better than being blind.

I swept up my towel and bottle immediately, and tore straight through the wall of grass.

Nitori was gone. Only her possessions remained.

My mind, which was already in a pretty deep level of panic, just sank another couple levels farther into the pit.

Someone had just taken Nitori away.

I looked to the sky, and saw a lone winged figure shrouded in shadow flying away.

A wave of fear battered me as I picked up Nitori's things and put them inside the backpack. My arms felt weak as I swung the backpack over my shoulder and secured the key in place. It wasn't really the backpack being heavy that nearly toppled me over. Honestly, it was actually sort of light, even though it was stuffed with tools; it was more of the fact that Nitori just gotten whisked away by some youkai that could cause blindness in those who heard its song.

Worst of all, she was the one who had insisted on this, but it felt like it was my fault. I could have just said no, or I could have just tried to go back to the shrine. Damnit, the universe DID hate me, huh? Why did Nitori have to get dragged into this?

I sighed, my heart heavy. Maybe the universe hated me, but I wasn't about to let that youkai eat Nitori. I immediately began to chase the black figure printed in the sky.

* * *

Admittedly, simply trying to chase after it wasn't the best idea in the world.

The figure had dipped below the tree line a while ago, landing somewhere in the direction I was headed. But now I had no idea where it was, and with no guide, I was completely lost.

I gritted my teeth in frustration. I hadn't felt this mad even when I had just popped out of nowhere into Gensokyo with no memory of my past. But this… this just kept pushed my anger levels farther and farther up. Feelings of anger and idiocy were still bouncing around in my head.

Argh, this was so stupid! If I had just been able to do something other than hide like a frightened rabbit, this wouldn't have happened.

But instead, I froze like a deer caught in the lights….

Then a weird thought popped into my head: why was I acting so pissed? It didn't feel out of place, being so mad (honestly, what kind of person _wouldn't_ be mad about something like this?), but it seemed to ring a familiar bell in my memory. Did I act this way back in the other world too?

I sighed. Now wasn't the time to be wondering about who I was back in the other world. Right now, I had to focus on saving Nitori.

That was going to be really hard, though. Nighttime was in full swing now, and I had to occasionally sneak around bushes to avoid being seen. Once, I was nearly caught by a teal-haired youkai that had the wings and light of a firefly (I was left wondering if the youkai was a girl or not. If it was, then it dressed pretty boyish for a girl. The pants did not help). If I hadn't been able to sense her presence at the last second, I would have been caught for sure (for the second time, I was able to appreciate the abilities I was gaining, even though they were still freaking me out).

I sensed another youkai, and I dove behind a bush. For several seconds, I waited. Then the youkai stopped in place.

Suddenly, something grabbed me by the back of the collar.

"Gyah!" I exclaimed as that something yanked me upward.

Then, gravity seemed to turn itself ninety degrees, and instead of being pulled up, I was pulled to the side. Just as my mind reset itself, I saw a strange hole being closed in midair.

"Hello, Kaito-kun."

"Eh? Yukari-sama."

The boundary youkai grinned at me. How had she been able to find me like that?

It felt strange seeing Yukari all the time, though. Had she taken some kind of personal interest in me? Considering it was Yukari, I wasn't sure what to think anyhow, but it still felt odd.

She was sitting in midair on some sort of hammock-like platform made of some strange purple void, holding me up with one hand. The other hand still held a parasol, open this time and hanging over her left shoulder. "What in the world are you doing out here at night? Reimu did explain that it was dangerous, did she not?" She let go of my collar, and I plopped onto a platform just like hers.

I nearly lost my balance, since the platform was so small. My initial relief at being found by Yukari, and not some other youkai, dissolved in an instant. "Well…."

"Actually," she interrupted, giving me a once over. "Tell me some time later. Right now, you need a place to lie low for a little while. And it looks like you need something to eat."

"Uh…." Just when she said that, my stomach took the chance and growled.

I sighed. I felt bad about doing this, but if I was going to keep searching, then an empty stomach wouldn't help. On top of that, if I could rest for a little while without having to dodge youkai, then searching could be a little easier. "Sure," I said a little dejectedly. "Thanks, Yukari-sama."

"Wait a second!" I stopped Yukari before she sent me falling into space again. "Reimu-chan's okay now, right? You said you were taking care of her."

"Why, of course she's okay," Yukari said happily. "The shrine is completely tidied up too, thanks to Ran and Chen. Though I'm not sure if Reimu's headache has passed over completely quite yet."

"Huh? Why?"

"I crawled into bed next to her as a joke!" Yukari began giggling. "She certainly got a shock out of that. It may not have been very healthy for her, but you really should have seen her expression; it was _priceless!_"

"Eh…." I wasn't laughing.

"What? It's funny."

"I know, I know…." Though I had to admit, something like that would be pretty hilarious normally, I wasn't going to laugh at it for two reasons: the current situation seemed to discourage laughter, and on top of that, I had been an unwilling victim of it too.

"Well, thanks a lot anyways, Yukari-sama. Would you mind telling Reimu-chan that I'm not going to be back at the shrine tonight? I don't want her to worry about me."

She nodded. "Now off with you!"

The platform beneath me opened up into a pit, and, after passing through a screen of black, I fell onto hard ground for the second time today. A yellow light shined down on one side of me.

"Ah! A customer?"

I got up slowly, a little dazed from the fall. I took a couple steps back from the light source, and I noticed it was coming from a large food cart. The kind of cart that people towed or drove around in to sell their goods on the go.

Inside manning the cart was a pink-haired girl with strange ears, a winged hat, and red eyes. Her brown-red dress was worn over a white blouse, and multiple bird-shaped ornaments decorated them. From her back sprouted a set of purple bird wings.

"Uh, hey," I said uneasily. I eyed the wings suspiciously; my memory wasn't quite clear, but those wings looked ridiculously similar to the ones on the figure that took Nitori away.

"Yukari-sama sort of… dropped me off here. She said I could get something to eat here?"

"Oh, so you're Yukari-sama's guest?" she said cheerfully. "Okay, two fresh fried lampreys coming right up!"

"W-wait a second, I don't hav-"

"Don't worry. I just said, you're Yukari-sama's guest, right? She's a recurring customer here, and we're good friends, so you don't have to worry about paying. This one's on the house!"

"Um… Alright then, I guess. Thanks."

"Of course! My name's Mystia. Mystia Lorelei."

"Nice to meet you, Mystia-sama. I'm Kaito." I sat down at one of the chairs built into the side of the card, and took off the backpack.

The problem was, I didn't feel right sitting down here. Not just because I still had to save Nitori, but also because I could sense something strange coming from Mystia. There was the usual aura that I felt from most people, sure, but that wasn't all. It was like Mystia's was coated in some kind of dark atmosphere. Something that I couldn't identify, and seriously did not like. What was it?

Still, I did my best to keep my cool. I was pretty sure that if I freaked out on her, then things would get really, really nasty, and fast.

In a little under forty seconds (I counted, because I was getting antsy, both from the time passing, and Mystia's aura), a plate of two fried lamprey slices was on the table. They were thinly cut, and well-seasoned. And they smelled downright heavenly.

"Itadakimasu." I picked up a pair of chopsticks and broke off a small piece to throw into my mouth.

Whoa! They didn't just smell awesome, but they tasted marvelous! The outside was crisped nicely, and the inside was soft and fluffy. The sour sauce added a little extra zing to a sweet and spicy taste. Warm, and fresh off the grill; it was incredible!

"Mmh," I sighed. For half a second, I almost forgot what I was supposed to be doing, but I snapped myself back into reality just as quickly. I swallowed the piece. "This tastes amazing, Mystia-sama!"

"Thank you, Kaito-san. I'm a well-accomplished cook after all."

It didn't take long for me to finish. I was a quick eater normally, but this time, I had a greater reason to eat quickly. I did savor a little of each bite, but enjoying the food, unfortunately, wasn't high on my priority list.

"Alright," I said, putting back down the chopsticks and slinging the backpack over my shoulders. "Thanks for the meal, Mystia-sama, but I really need to get going now." I rose from my seat.

"Wait a moment!" She raised a hand to stop me. "Since you're Yukari-sama's guest, how about I offer you a little something special?"

"Huh?" I knew I had to get going, but I could at least answer a couple questions. "Something special?"

"Yes. I was about to try and make a new dish, and I was wondering if you'd like to be the first to try it. It won't take too long to make."

"Uh… I'm not sure. I really do have to get going, though. What dish are you trying to make?"

"Fried kappa!"

An icy dagger shoved itself into my heart at those two words.

I froze for a second or two, too stunned to move. She said fried… Could she have been the one?

Mystia looked at me curiously. "Kaito-san?"

I snapped out of my condition. "E-er… N-no thank you, Mystia-sama," I said as nicely as I could. Which was really hard, since I was about to go into panic mode. "I appreciate the offer, but perhaps another day. I'm busy right now."

"Oh, you are?" she said, disappointed. "That's a shame. I was hoping you wou-"

_Bang!_

The noise had come from inside the cart.

"Uh… what was that just now?" I asked. Please tell me that's not what I think it is….

"I think that was something from inside the food pantry." She pointed at a door to her left.

_Bang!_

"Well…." I was going to say something, like tell her that she should do something about it, but then I heard something else. Something that sounded like… muffled screaming?

No way….

"Is something wrong?" Mystia asked. Her face, however, betrayed no concern. In fact, it was smiling.

_Bang!_

"Move over, Mystia-sama," I ordered, vaulting over the table and main cooking station, landing where Mystia was.

"Wait," she started. "You're a customer, you shouldn't be ba-"

"I said move!" I shoved her aside. Apparently, my emotions were seriously getting the better of me, because I accidentally blew her back a foot with a small palm blast.

_Sorry,_ I said in my mind. I jumped at the door and threw it open.

A startled, stifled scream.

Out tumbled Nitori, bound, gagged, and naked.

I was so surprised that I didn't care about how she was sitting there, right in front of me, completely nude.

She looked up at me with surprise, but couldn't express it through the cloth tied over her mouth.

My god….

It _had_ been Mystia….

If I had accepted her offer….

My mouth slowly turned downward into an angry snarl.

"Kaito-san, please, wait," Mystia tried to say. Her words were filled with some kind of weight behind them.

"You…." My voice came out as a half-shout. I turned my head to look at Mystia out of the corner of my eye. Her eyes were glittering, and her face was strangely relaxed. "You were going to make me eat Nitori-chan…."

"You know her?"

"Yeah… I do…." I was speaking through clenched teeth now. I tried my best to calm down. It wasn't working. My fists were clenched so hard, that I could feel a little blood in my palms. "And you were going to make me eat her!"

"Well, I'm sorry," she said, almost playfully. "But I didn't kn-"

BA-KOOM!

I punched her. _Hard_. Hard enough to blow her through the opposite wall of the cart and send her tumbling for several meters.

Nitori squeaked.

I snatched a nearby knife from its resting place, and quickly cut Nitori free. She was blushing furiously. I didn't care.

"K-Ka-Kaito-kun…" Nitori stuttered out when she removed her gag.

I unhitched the backpack and handed it to her. My voice came out nearly deadpan. Only nearly, because despite how much I was trying to calm myself, my voice came out steely instead. "Your clothes are inside. Get dressed. I have some business to take care of."

I didn't wait for an answer. When I noticed a couple spell cards in a side pocket, I swiped one before following Mystia out the hole in the wall.

She was going to pay for this.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

So the beginning of the chapter starts out okay enough, then takes a very sharp turn downhill. Gee, talk about mass mood shift. This is when some things start getting serious, so bear with. There will be interludes for some time, yes, but the _real_ story starts now (mostly).

When I was first writing this chapter, I nearly made myself a little sick to the stomach knowing what kinds of implications I was throwing about. Or rather, not implications, but outright statements of what was going to happen.

Yes, I nearly made myself sick from writing Mystia with "I Am Humanitarian" tastes.

But then you have to take a step back and think a bit. Remember that _youkai eat other youkai to survive and grow in strength_. Sure, Gensokyo is all cutesy and stuff, but that rule probably has no exception even in Gensokyo.

Then remind yourself that**_ pretty much every youkai, one way or another, looks human_**_._

Yeah, fair bit of fridge horror there, huh? I know I was seriously terrified by it.

Worse, I was actually eating at the time when I noticed this, and it made me want to throw up. As it was, I lost my appetite for some time afterwards anyways.

Also, for those of you who are sticklers for attention and have been keeping a close eye on certain details, you'll notice that I depicted Mystia's eyes incorrectly, as her eyes are supposed to be gray instead of red (for those of you who didn't notice that, then this is telling you now). _This was very much intentional._ I was fully cognizant of this fact while writing it in (even checking it on the TouhouWiki to make sure I wasn't getting my crap wrong) which is why I'm not changing it now, so don't worry about that minor lapse. Trust me, it'll come back into play in the next chapter as well.

And besides, "Red Eyes Take Warning." That's usually a good rule to go by.

A second chase begins anew. What's going to happen next? Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	20. Chapter 20: Shade Of Deadly Night

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 20: Shade Of Deadly Night**

Mystia was only just getting up when I stepped out of the hole in the cart wall. She was grinning maliciously.

"Now that wasn't very nice," she said jokingly. "Shouldn't you say 'gouchisosama' instead of blowing your cook and server through a wall?"

"I have no thanks for someone who tries to make me eat my friends," I retorted coldly.

"Oh, that's such a shame." Her eyes began to glow an evil red. It wasn't like either the magic rubies or Remilia's rage; this glow was one of pure malevolence. "I suppose I'm going to have to punish you for being rude, but now isn't the time. Perhaps another day."

"Hey!" I shouted indignantly when she took off into the tree branches.

"Oh, and by the way, you owe me for those lampreys now." She disappeared into the leaves, laughing.

"Get the hell back here, Mystia!" I chased after her.

I knew that running after her in revenge was a really, really dumb idea. Frankly, I didn't give a damn. She had just made an offer to me to go humanitarian on one of my friends. I was _not_ going to forgive her for that. Even if I had to fight my way through a gauntlet of youkai to get to her, I was ready to do that.

The forest did not let up in size, and navigating was getting difficult. All I had to go by was Mystia's constant laughter, and my occasional glimpses of her. I thought it weird that she would be laughing so much when she was trying to avoid me, but I didn't care. At least it would be a lot harder to get lost this way.

_I'm not stopping until I've caught you, got that, Mystia?_

After about a minute of fevered running, the forest began changing form. The trees began to thin out, and the grass steadily became dotted with more and more flowers. Eventually, the branches had thinned to the point where I could actually see Mystia.

Slowly but surely, Mystia began to dive towards the ground. She landed in a clearing, in the middle of a massive flower field. I stopped short.

It was strange; I had run that entire way instead of flying, and it wasn't a decent jog either. In fact, it very nearly could have counted for sprinting. Yet I didn't feel very tired after that long run. Not like I cared though.

"Are you done running yet?" I asked angrily. I didn't appreciate the way she simply fled like that. But now that I had calmed down a little during the run, I was slightly regretful that I had simply gone off like that and left Nitori behind. But that wasn't my current concern right now, so I ignored it.

Mystia turned her gaze upon me. A gaze that was, for lack of a better word, just plain evil. The gleam in her eye basically told me that she had done all this just for laughs.

"My, you certainly are persistent. Kind of like how I was on that endless night. But yes, I'm done running. Because I don't need to run."

Don't need to? Why the hell would that be?

"So you brought another victim, I see?" came a voice from behind me.

Oh great, someone else was joining the fray?

I turned to see a blonde newcomer with a red ribbon in her hair. Her shirt was a deep shade of purple, accompanied by a red dress. A large, white bow came out her back, and floating alongside the little girl – who couldn't have looked like much more than a ten year old – was a doll that, upon closer examination, looked exactly like her.

She had eyes as red as Mystia's, and a manic smile stretched across pale skin. "I wonder how this one will taste. Good, I hope."

"Too bad I didn't get a taste of him earlier," Mystia cooed. Now I _knew_ chasing her was a really bad idea. "I suppose we'll find out together, won't we?"

The girl laughed. It wasn't a natural laugh; it was the kind of laugh you got out of an axe-crazy maniac that looked like an innocent little child. "Oh, yes we will!"

Crap. I really needed to rein in my emotions the next time something like this happened.

The girl pulled out a card. "Dirty human. You should have just stayed home. Now you're in my territory. Feel the wrath of Medicine Melancholy! _すずらんの毒と収集の感覚を破壊する！__Poison Sign: Nerve Poison!_"

The card burst apart, a cloud of purple dispersing and disappearing into the air. Damnit, I ran myself into a youkai that could control poison? That was just fantastic.

I sucked in as much air as possible, and held my breath. I wasn't sure how long I would be able to hold it, but it was at least better than breathing in poison. If I wasn't careful, and finished this quickly, her poison was going to completely paralyze me.

"_私の敵は、私の巧みな曲に目がくらんでください！__Night-Blindness: Song of the Night Sparrow!"_

The second spell card caught me off-guard. Just as I turned back to Mystia, she was already absorbing the contents of the card. I had to fight both of them at once? What had I just gotten myself into?

"Don't worry," she said menacingly, baring a set of wicked long nails. "We'll make sure to pick you clean so you're not wasted."

She began to sing a different song from the one she had sung when spiriting away Nitori. The effect, however, was the same, and instantaneous; my vision began to dim and fade once more.

Geez! Even worse; I was going to have to fight the enemy _in the dark_. Sure, I could still feel their auras around me (which, despite helping me see through the darkness, was something I didn't really appreciate, because both of them were coated by the same darkness), but things couldn't get much worse than this, could it?

Mystia came at me immediately, claws flying. The dark aura made me flinch, but I blocked her incoming assaults the best I could. Being so close, I could practically see her body in my mind's eye, but the dark aura felt like it was poisoning my mind. It was practically acting apart from the poison Medicine had just placed over the flower field. I knew I was in serious trouble, but fleeing was no longer an option. Now that I couldn't see, I wouldn't be able to make my way through the forest.

Her swings came wildly, and were easy to block, dodge and counter. I managed to land a couple glancing blows, and she was hit by a single yellow energy wave. But she didn't seem fazed at all, and after only a few moments of fending her off, I could feel my energy slowly fading away. The dark auras were sapping my strength like drains, and my breath came back. There was a very minute taste and scent in the air, and I knew the poison would only need minutes, or even seconds, to start breaking down my body.

"I can't say I'm terribly good at fighting," Medicine commented. "But if I can break down your system for Mystia, then it's all the same!"

I could only grunt in response. My strength was flagging. The combination of poison and darkness was quickly overcoming my senses. Slashes and stabs I could easily dodge before were now taking considerable effort to block or parry. If I didn't do something fast, I was a goner.

_Damnit, I only have one spell card to use against two opponents. How the hell am I supposed to win this?_

Again, the universe decided to screw with me, this time in a very backhanded way.

"_私の力では、私の敵を洗い流すれる河川を流用！__Flood: Diluvial Mere!"_

The sound of the voice diverted my attention just for a split second. Mystia had no such reservations.

_SHLUK!_

"Aagh!" I backed off a step, clutching my chest.

Damnit! My chest… her nails gored straight into my chest….

Suddenly, the sound of rushing water came. Mystia and Medicine screamed in unison. The water crashed all around me, but didn't touch me save for a few droplets. The roar of the water drowned out their screams.

"Kaito-kun!"

I was on my knees. With the singing now gone, my vision was returning. A wall of blue water was washing its way out of my sight.

"Kaito-kun, I'm so sorry!"

The sound of hurried footsteps came to an end as a teal dress came into my vision. Nitori had come to my aid.

I almost couldn't mind it. My hands were still held over my chest, trying to staunch the blood. I couldn't bring myself to look down.

The sensation of cool water washed over my hands. I subconsciously lifted them away, and a heavy sting hit my chest. Now, I looked down. My hands were covered in blood.

"Urk!" The stinging was stacking itself onto the original pain.

"We need to get out of here, now! I can't treat you here."

A howl of indignity punched into my ears. I looked to see Mystia and Medicine coming right back for us.

"You're going to pay for that, damned kappa!" Mystia cried out. "I'll enjoy feasting on you after the boy!"

I grunted, and pulled the spell card out of my pocket. "Get the hell out of here, you two!" I shouted. _"__召喚波が驚きの大陸と浸るの世界！__Water Sign: Kappa's Flash Flood!"_

The card fell into the floor like a drop of water, and in an instant, a tidal wave no less than three stories tall spawned to life, ready to crush the demonic pair.

"_月音の障壁は、単独での音声によって打ち砕かれる！__Vocal Sign: Howl of the Horned Owl!"_

A massive scream pierced the night. It was like the howl of a banshee. The sound barrier was shattered completely, blowing apart the tidal wave, and sending wind pounding its way into Nitori and I.

I wanted to flee now, but my legs wouldn't move. Nitori shook me, crying "Get up!" but I wouldn't respond.

_Come on, move!_ I thought desperately. My legs refused to obey.

"Now it's time for you to die!" Medicine raised an arm, and several flowers shot up. As one, they began folding themselves inward, forming tapered darts. With a wave of her hand, they shot forward.

"No!" Nitori screamed. I felt an arm try and shove me away. "Get out of the-"

SHUNK!

Everything was in slow motion now. Nitori was falling backwards. She had thrown herself in front of me. She took those shots for me.

I watched in complete shock as she fell to the ground.

_Thud!_

The pain in my chest was no longer there. Either that, or it wasn't pounding hard enough, because I didn't care.

"Nitori-chan…."

No… this couldn't be…

"NITORI-CHAAAAN!"

Damnit….

DAMNIT!

I stared into her closed eyes for what may as well have been hours. The five darts, embedded half an inch deep, were spreading poison into her torso. She was going to die.

She was going to die saving me.

Saving someone she hadn't known for even a day yet.

A void just drilled itself into my heart. I thought that I would be absolutely crushed by this. In a way, I was, but I felt no weight. No anger. All I felt was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Nothing except for a single lone drive.

The drive to _absolutely__**murder**_ Mystia and Medicine.

"Oh, that was really a surprise," Medicine mused. "She took five of my Poison Bees to keep them from hitting you. Shame she failed to block three of them. But face the fact, little boy; you two are going to die in minutes."

I stood up, my wound forgotten, and not caring that I had been hit by three darts laced with poison. I turned to look at the malevolent duo, but not with rage or insanity. My face had nothing on it at all. Nothing but an intense look that could shear off mountaintops. The two of them actually recoiled.

In a steely calm voice, I uttered out "I'm going to kill you two."

Suddenly, there was a massive flash of light directly in front of me. I didn't react to it at all. Mystia and Medicine almost seemed to have an aversion to light, and shied away from it.

When it died away, there was a pure white card floating there. I snatched it out of the air. The name came to me instantly, along with a string of other words as it broke.

_"O, animae temporis, date virem me, et consistite mundum in loco!"_

The world stopped in place. Everything shifted into a noir-like state. Everything moved slowly, like they were frozen in glaciers, and nothing had color except me. Mystia and Medicine had nothing but surprise on their faces.

_"O, animae aquae et venti, temperate, et eradicate meum advosarium!"_

"_Time Storm: Split-Second Hurricane!"_

From my hand spouted a glob of water, which began to run in a circle at an unbelievable speed. In less than a second, a gigantic hurricane burst into existence in front of me, raging and spinning uncontrollably. I was left unharmed, since it was my own personal whirlwind.

I pushed my hand forward, and the hurricane drifted towards the two youkai. When it was practically upon them, and was about to swallow them into the eye of the storm, I snapped my fingers.

The world shattered. Pieces of black and white fell apart right in my mind's eye, like fragments of broken glass.

Mystia and Medicine didn't have any time to do more than scream noiselessly as the violent twister picked them both up in its furious grasp. Plants everywhere were not able to escape the winds, and were torn up by the roots and thrown into the wild tempest I had created. Flowers came loose. Branches broke. Even a couple of small trees joined the chaotic squall.

I was on the floor, holding Nitori in place. The hurricane had no effect on me, so I used that to my advantage, and kept Nitori under my arms.

In a few seconds, the sound of the hurricane disappeared, and everything hit the floor at once. Except for Mystia and Medicine. Their screams quickly drifted away, thrown by the force of the cyclone they had been sucked into.

Everything went quiet.

I was breathing heavily. My eyesight was blurry, and I realized I was crying. Crying over Nitori's near-motionless body.

I wiped away the tears. I swept her up into my arms and yanked out the five darts sticking out of her body, completely ignoring the pain in my chest, and the numbness that was slowly spreading through my body.

_I'm going to save you._

Newfound strength surged through my limbs, and I took off running.

The surrounding area was devoid of plant life, now. When I ran, I didn't know where I was running.

In mere moments, I found myself surrounded by bamboo. Bamboo that shot up tens of feet into the air. The path was not very clear, and I sometimes had to jump through walls of bamboo to get through. It appeared endless; a bamboo forest that ran on forever, designed to ensnare all who entered its clutches.

_Damnit, I need help!_

I looked helplessly at Nitori, who now looked like she may as well have been sleeping. I knew otherwise; her face was turning pale, and she was beginning to shiver.

"Kai… to… kun…."

I looked down in shock. She was still conscious!

"…Cold…."

"No, no, hang in there! I'm going to get help!"

All of a sudden, she coughed violently. And again. And again, this time spitting out a little blood.

"No!" I shouted desperately. "Don't die yet! I'm going to save you!"

My eyes began welling up again. My legs collapsed under me, no longer willing to run.

I gripped her close, burying her face into my chest as I cried into her hat.

_Somebody, please help…._

A light came down into my vision. I looked up.

A girl was flying there, her large wings made of what looked like fire. Her light violet hair had paper charms tied into it, and nearly reached past her feet. She wore deep red pants with more charms laid out on them, and her shirt had a charred brown color to it.

She looked at me with red eyes as warm as a fireplace.

"Please…" I uttered out, despairing. "Help…."

She nodded her head. She pulled a single hand out of a pocket, and a small fire burst to life in her palm.

All of a sudden, something in my pocket began to glow red.

I looked down in disbelief. With a numb hand, I reached in and pulled out the source of the glow.

It was the ruby from Hell. The one I had ripped out of that demon's chest.

The girl was surprised, but she didn't say anything. A finger from her other hand moved, asking me for the ruby.

I didn't hesitate. I threw it straight to her.

She caught it in the other hand, focused for a quick moment, and the glow died away. Suddenly, the fire in her hand turned blue as tiny fragments of what was once a ruby trickled from her clenched fist. She hurled the fire straight at me. Instead of burning, it sank into my chest, and immense warmth spread throughout my body. Without a word, she gestured with one arm, telling me to follow, and flew off.

Gathering the last of my strength, with the help of the sudden burst of flame, I pushed off, following the light of her massive wings. I was being given assistance, and I wasn't going to give up on this now. Not even if my legs got paralyzed; I wasn't going to stop.

After a minute of following, the light stopped in place. When I arrived, the girl pointed into a clearing. A massive mansion stood there, with windows stretching upwards at least four stories.

I turned, ready to thank the girl, but she was already gone.

As it was, I was so exhausted, that I wouldn't have had the energy to say the words.

My legs failed me once I staggered up the steps of the mansion and raised a single, shuddering fist. I hammered on the door as hard as I could.

A rush of footsteps. The door opening. Light purple hair and a set of rabbit ears.

I whispered out the single word "Help…."

A heavy cough. Blood on my hand

Lightless oblivion.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

* Gather the poisons of suzuran and destroy their senses!

** Enemies of mine, be blinded by my skillful song!

*** By my power, divert the two rivers that will wash away my enemy!

**** Summon the wave that surprises continents and drowns worlds!

*****May the sound barrier be shattered by voice alone!

****** O, spirits of time, give me strength, and stop the world in place!

- O, spirits of water and wind, combine, and eradicate my enemy!

That's right. I used Latin. Why, you may ask? Well, I wanted to use a language that would have differentiated itself from the rest of the girls in order to show how foreign I was supposed to be to Gensokyo, and stemmed from my roots of the "outside world." If I tried to use my actual native roots in language, I would have wound up using Chinese, and that would have looked pretty... well, it would have sorta looked not-so-different in comparison to the Japanese everyone else was using.

So I decided to go with the language that ran parallel to my native roots: English. And what language does English trace many of its roots from?

No points for being able to guess that question right.

As an added bonus, I personally like the language itself. Partially because it sounds cool to actually speak it, partially because it allows me to delve a little further into the roots of the society in which I was born (no I'm not a patriot, but the U.S. is still my home regardless).

And for the record, Mahou Sensei Negima may have been a pretty heavy influence on this decision too.

I hold a certain point presented here to be the truth and nothing but the truth: harm someone I care about, and I will be pissed beyond belief. Yes, this was presented in the last chapter too, but this chapter pushes the point much further, since it basically _very nearly_ kills off Nitori. Emotional abuse is something I can deal with easily, being able to comfort and support the victim (that is to say, my friend). If it's directed at me, I'll shake it off with little more than annoyance and/or minor resentment. And seriously, I don't really care what others would do to try to abuse me.

Going after one of my friends, however, will be _very very different._ Physical harm to them will rile me up more than anything else. I know this to be an absolute fact. It's almost like I have no pet peeve (or at least, not one that I know of yet); just a berserk button.

The next arrival is at the House of Eternity. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~

**EDIT:** I don't think I'll ever stress this enough; a huge thank-you to egyptianpanda for helping me with those Latin translations. With this edit, I've changed them to the proper words.


	21. Chapter 21: Curing Poisonous Nightmares

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

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**Chapter 21: Poisonous Nightmares**

_A field of flowers. I was going to panic, but they weren't the same as before. Brighter, and in multiple colors. I calmed down. I wasn't going to be attacked._

_A river ran in front of me. To my right was a forest of trees and bamboo. My left, a large lake. The sun was shaded by a thin cloud._

_It was a realm of nothing but peace. A gentle breeze toyed with my hair and white robe._

_An orb of light spawned to life, and a young girl appeared in front of me, across the river. The light shined down upon her in a way that seemed almost holy. Her hair was a short, beautiful blue, with two small pigtails out the sides. Her face was unlike any I had ever seen before. Her dress was as blue as her hair._

_A slight shadow fell across her, and I saw wings. Big white wings, coming out of her back. An angel…._

_She walked at me, her wings folded behind her. I stood there, waiting._

_With more ease than a water strider, she walked over the water. Her feet never disturbed the surface of the river._

_Her steps went upward, and she was floating in midair. No longer walking, she wafted over to me. Just like an angel._

_Eventually, she was above me, eclipsing the sun. All I could see was her face, and wings flapping slowly to hold her up. Her eyes were as blue as the lake, but to me, they glowed much brighter._

_She smiled gently down upon me. Her mouth didn't move, but I heard a voice. "Thank you."_

_Thank you? What was she thanking me for? What had I done?_

_Again, the voice. "Do not speak." I obeyed._

_She leaned down and held my face in her hands as her eyes closed._

_Her lips felt strangely warm on mine._

_When we parted, I saw she had tears in her eyes. I wanted to say something. To tell her not to cry. To tell her to not feel sad._

_Suddenly, she began to disappear. Fade away. Blown by the wind._

_No, don't go. Where are you going?_

_The sunlight turned away its gaze, obscured by clouds. Everything suddenly twisted itself into darkness. The river was dried up, the riverbed cracked. The trees were dead, the bamboo wilted. The lake was polluted and black. The flowers all around me were lifeless, gray petals on the floor._

_What's going on? What happened?_

_An amalgam of black void swirled across the river. It took on the form of a young woman. Darkness swirled around her like an aura or shield. Her dress was a whirling cacophony of red and black, and her skin was no less chaotic._

_She did not speak at all. I didn't want her to. What was she? What had she done to the nature around us?_

_The black woman walked over the empty river, stopping a few meters in front of me. Wherever her feet touched, puddles of black goop were left in her wake. She waved a hand._

_A portal of black appeared on her left. When it died away, there was the angel, chained to the floor by coils of darkness. Pulsing red bindings held her wings shut. Her blue dress was tattered and ripped. She didn't look at me._

_What are you doing? Why are you doing this? How could you do that to an angel?_

_The woman closed the hand, and the chains snapped shut. The angel was utterly broken, shattered into hundreds of white and blue pieces. A piercing sound, and the entire world cracked, gouges in the sky spider-webbing across my vision._

_I felt like my soul had just been crushed. You killed an angel. How could you do such a monstrous thing?_

_The woman looked at me with blank white eyes. A manic white smile stretched across her face. She twisted her head to the side at an impossible angle; a sure sign of madness._

"_You're next."_

_A pool of black suddenly spawned under me, and black chains shot out, trapping me in place._

_She held out a hand. And closed it._

_My vision fragmented. And everything fell to pieces._

* * *

"Gah!"

My breath came in shuddering waves. Those beautiful and terrifying images were burned into my mentality.

A startled cry. I turned left just in time to see a fairy dressed like a maid scurrying out the door. I could have been hallucinating, but I thought I saw a set of rabbit ears on its head, and a fluffy white tail out the back of its dress.

The surroundings were calm and old fashioned. Most everything was made of wood, and laid itself out in the way a hospital would, with several beds and tables accompanying them. A window opposite of my side of the room had slightly-open curtains, letting in a shaft of morning light.

What the… Where was I? And when did I change into this white robe?

A few seconds later, footsteps could be heard. Through the door came a teenaged girl with long light purple hair.

"Oh! You're awake," she said, surprised. "You woke up earlier than oshisho-sama said you would."

She walked to my bedside and gave me a once over. She was wearing a white dress shirt with a long red necktie, hanging free of the blue skirt below it. For the most part, she looked normal, but I didn't want to relax. Again, the red eyes struck, and I felt the need to run, but her eyes reflected concern, not insanity.

What I didn't quite understand, however, was her ears; while it didn't look like she had human ears despite her human appearance, the rumpled rabbit ears on her head looked like they had been tacked down with buttons.

"Where… where am I?" I asked.

"You're inside Eientei, in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. You're under Kaguya-hime's care right now. My name's Reisen. I helped take care of you."

I nodded. "I'm… Kaito."

"Are you feeling alright? You were in quite a terrible state when you came to us three nights ago."

Three nights? I'd been sleeping for three days straight?

"I…" I tried to say something. Suddenly, sharp pain stabbed into my chest. "Ack!" I blurted out, grabbing the center of my chest.

"Whoa!" Reisen gently pushed me back down. The bed felt soft, and the linens were thin, but warm. "Seems like you're not completely healed yet. You may be able to move around, but you should stay in bed for a while longer."

I grunted in response. I looked up at her worried face. Then her purple hair reminded me of something. Wasn't she the girl who had opened the door that other night?

That night….

I gasped as horrifying images flooded my mind: a flower field, laughter, poison darts….

"Nitori-chan!"

I shot up in my bed again. My legs could hardly move, but I shifted them anyways, drawing them out from under the covers to hang over the floor.

"Wait, take it easy," she pleaded. "You're not feeling that well yet."

I slid off the bed, nearly stumbling on my numbed legs. I barely managed to keep myself up, and grabbed Reisen by the shoulders. Half for balance, half for a stable location to channel my panic.

"The girl I came here with," I said urgently. "Where is she? Is she alive?"

"You really shouldn't be up like this!"

"Is she alive?" I was ready to cry. Had I saved her? Was my endeavor all for nothing?

My desperation seemed to be enough. She nodded her head, and pointed behind me. "O-oshisho-sama said she would live. She's about two beds down that way from yours."

I released my grip and began trying to move myself over. My legs refused to listen, and I fell face-first into the floor. Damn all that poison!

"Here," Reisen offered. "Let me help you."

She took one of my arms and slung it over her shoulders. Her other arm gripped my side, and she half-carried me over to the seat by the other bed. It took some effort, but she managed to get me to sit in the chair.

Nitori was resting under the thin layer of sheets. Her face had color once more, but she wasn't moving at all, save for the steady rising and falling of her chest. She was dressed in a white robe like mine, and her hat was on the bedside table.

"Reisen-san…" I murmured, pulling myself and the chair closer. "Sorry about that. My outburst was uncalled for, but… Your oshisho-sama… she said Nitori-chan would live?"

"Yes, but we don't know how long it will take for her to wake up. The poison took a large toll on her body. We almost weren't able to identify what she was poisoned with until we found out it was the same as what was infecting you."

The poison… I didn't know where the darts had hit me, but Medicine had said Nitori took five of them in my place, while three others got through.

"And… you were able to cure her?" I asked, aghast.

"That's right," came a voice from the doorway.

"Ah, oshisho-sama!"

I turned just in time to see Reisen bowing at her authority figure. When I saw who it was, I couldn't have been happier.

"E-Eirin-sama!"

"I must say," the silver-haired doctor said pleasantly as she walked over. "I'm quite astonished to see you awaken before the girl. She may have been stuck with more darts than you, but from what we observed, your darts were embedded in your skin for a longer period of time. Had we not pulled them out when we did, the poison would have completely overcome your body before we could do anything about it."

I looked away shamefully. So Eirin was Reisen's mistress? Now I was nearly sure that Nitori would live. That didn't really excuse my idiotic behavior, though. "M-my apologies, Eirin-sama. I wasn't thinking of my personal health. All I could think of was saving Nitori-chan."

"A noble notion," she agreed, smiling. "But that's beside the point. Aside from the poison coursing through your veins that claw slash on your chest was not easy to close up either."

"Claw slash…." I vaguely remembered Mystia slashing me with her nails. That had been that sharp pain that I felt; it still wasn't healed. A hand drifted up to my chest, and I could feel something rough underneath the robe.

"That slash cut all the way down to the body of your sternum, slicing off large parts of the origins of your pectoralis major, and very nearly missing the upper left section of your rectus abdominis. Had the slash gone much further on either side, then it may have hit your serratus anterior and left deltoid as well. Conventional medicines to heal injuries – like the one I gave you a week ago – would not have worked due to the size of the wound, so we had to give you sutures, instead only applying topical medicines to help speed up the recovery process. Also, you had lost a considerable amount of blood by the time we were able to treat you, and required several minor transfusions, which was difficult considering your blood type. Thankfully, however, we were able to restore your blood levels after some time. Too late, and you would have succumbed to blood loss."

I could only nod. Somehow, I was able to understand what she was saying nearly perfectly. I didn't know where the knowledge came from though. The outside?

The next part, I understood less so. "Also," Eirin continued. "You were apparently exposed to a moderate level neurotoxin that would have paralyzed your entire nervous system. Thankfully, you were not exposed to the toxin long enough, so while it did make quite a few nerve endings go numb, its affects went no further than that.

"However, the poison darts had been continually injecting you with a certain toxin designed to target and break down bodily tissues and organs, primarily targeting the lungs and heart in an attempt to force cardiac arrest. I had expected the poison to kill you on the spot, since it had been the poison of a suzuran flower. However, it seemed to have been diluted from its original state, and the darts had stuck into both your legs; a good distance away from any cardiac tissue. But that did not matter in any case; had the darts continued to do their job, you most certainly would have died. By the time I had identified the poison, you were already beginning to suffer from cardiac arrest. Surprisingly, your friend," she nodded at Nitori, "thanks to your actions, was not exposed long enough to experience the same effects, which makes it quite surprising that you would recover first when you were injected with considerably more toxin than her. On top of that, you're also human, so I had believed you would not survive the ordeal."

"Whoa… I didn't even know…"I said slowly. Then I grunted in pain, clutching my chest, but I shook it off. "But that means that if I survived, Nitori-chan will survive, right?"

Eirin nodded. "We're not sure how long it will take for her to awaken, but yes, she will survive."

Emotion completely overran all bodily processes when she said that, and I began to cry.

I had done it….

I managed to save her….

I promptly stood up, completely ignoring the fact my legs were still numb, and bowed deeply. Somehow, I managed to wrest back control just long enough to choke out "Thank you so much, Eirin-sama."

She nodded. Then she looked up into the ceiling, and said "I believe Kaguya-hime is calling me. If you will excuse me. Reisen, come!"

"Yes, oshisho-sama."

The two of them turned to leave (I noticed that Reisen, too, had a fluffy tail coming out her skirt). Before she exited completely, Reisen stopped.

"If you'd like, Kaito-san," she said. "You can choose to stay there for the time being, but please, go back into your own bed if you're not feeling well."

I nodded. She smiled, and left.

Nitori and I were alone.

I sat down (or rather, collapsed into the chair) and looked back upon her. She was in fitful rest, with nothing to disturb her here. She was going to make a full recovery.

A simple smile drew itself across my lips. What else could I do?

I sat there for what felt like hours. Occasionally, a stab of pain hit me, but I ignored it. I could have just fallen asleep, and it wouldn't have mattered.

For some reason, in a way I couldn't really understand, I thought she looked strangely cute asleep. Perhaps a little vulnerable too. Reisen's suggestion was pretty much completely forgotten; how could I rest in my own bed when I could rest here where I was close to Nitori, where she was safe?

I didn't feel like I had the strength anyhow, so any notion of returning to my own bed was more or less chucked out the window either way.

Suddenly, I got an odd picture in my head. That girl from my dreams… that angel… looking at Nitori's face, I realized they looked extremely similar. Perhaps even twins, maybe. Or even….

I shot up involuntarily, my face hot. Oh, no way. There's _no_ way they could have been the same person….

… Right?

I shook my head. Geez, I sure jumped to some conclusions pretty quickly….

… But then again, I couldn't exactly deny the similarities. The same hair as blue as the sky… The same gently curved face… And were those angel wings I could see?

Wait, what?

I slapped myself across the face. I was drifting off into dream land. Thankfully, no one was around, so no one was able to watch my strange reactions to supposedly nothing.

_Man, these are really strange thoughts. Come on, fate, you _cannot_ be screwing with me like this. I hardly even know her!_

There was no way emotions could evolve that fast. My brain was doing some pretty strange things if I was suddenly thinking about this kind of stuff so quickly.

Still, I could at least admit that the two of us had been through quite a bit together in one night.

Now that I thought about it, though… where had that spell card come from? As far as I could remember, no one else had been around to help, and Nitori had been hit with five poison darts all at once, though I didn't know exactly where, and was knocked cold almost instantly from the poison influx (how the hell did it not do that to me? Was it because I was hit with fewer darts?). She hadn't been able to help. And yet there it was, right when I wanted to take Mystia and Medicine out of the picture. And it had done an absolutely spectacular job at it. It had stopped time for a moment, _and_ it had conjured up a hurricane to throw them away, all at once.

That wasn't the weirdest part, though. Aside from suddenly, conveniently being there, the incantation had been different. It wasn't the same as the languages everyone else, including me, had spoken before. What did that mean?

I sighed a little, resting my head in my arms on the bed. I stared at Nitori's sleeping face, in deep thought. That spell card had to belong to somebody, and whoever the person was, I'd have to thank them for giving it to me at that second.

But that still left questions unanswered. Like, why had the incantations been different? And why did it have two effects instead of one? It had used two different incantations all in one spell card, which shouldn't happen if my past experiences were anything to go by.

Then, something snapped me out of my reverie; a blinding flash suddenly emitted from my pocket.

"Whoa!" I yelped, trying to bunch up the robe to block the light.

It refused to remain hidden for some reason. What the heck was this?

A few seconds later, the light began to die down. Tentatively, I released the folds of the robe to allow the light come back as it receded. Once it looked like it had vanished completely, I reached into the pocket…

And pulled out a card.

It was pure white, just like the one from that night. Mild traces of light were still being emitted, and even as I looked at it, they were continuing to ebb away. Eventually, a picture began coming into view, taking up a large part of the center of the card. The rest remained white.

When it finished painting itself, the picture depicted a large white hurricane spinning against a background of two panes of broken white and black glass.

I turned the card over. Black words inked themselves into place. I read the name, uncomprehending – _Time Storm: Split Second Hurricane._

My mind sort of broke.

Very flatly, I uttered out a simple "What."

This was the spell card I used last night.

No way….

It was mine?

I didn't have much time to process it. Something else took away my attention.

Nitori groaned.

I gasped, jammed the card back into my pocket, and threw my attention back to the stirring kappa. She wasn't giving any real sign of actually waking up; she was just stirring. Her eyelids twitched, as if she was concentrating, and her head was tossing.

I leaned in as far as I could without disturbing her, or letting myself topple unceremoniously out of my chair. "Nitori-chan. Are you awake, Nitori-chan?"

"Nngh…" she groaned again. It sounded like she was in pain. "No… Stay… Stay away. Don't…."

Oh man, she was having a nightmare. I leaned in a little closer. This time, I _did_ fall out of the chair, but in a way that made little noise; instead of falling over like a tipped tree, the chair just slid back. I slipped into a kneeling position next to the bed. "Nitori-chan!" I called out urgently.

She paid me no heed. Her brow scrunched in pain as she continued talking in her sleep, drawing out the nightmare into reality. "Don't… Stop… N-not him… Please, no…." She started sounding desperate.

"Who?" I asked. I wasn't sure why, but I was afraid. Afraid of the nightmare she was seeing. Afraid of who or what was causing her pain. I just wanted it to stop. "Who is it, Nitori-chan?"

Her teeth clenched in apparent agony. "Not him, please… A-anyone but him… Me… Hurt me instead….

"Please, don't hurt him anymore!"

I recoiled in shock. The last statement had come out as a scream. A single, gleaming tear rolled down the side of her face.

I pushed as much strength as I could into my legs. They suddenly responded, and with the help of my arms, I sat myself back into the chair, pulled myself as close as possible, and leaned in closer to Nitori's face. One arm draped itself over her and pulled her closer into a hug. The other hand pressed itself onto her forehead.

"It's okay, Nitori-chan," I whispered soothingly into her ear. I didn't care who was causing the pain, and to whom. All I cared about was calming her down. It was hard trying, because I was almost ready to cry myself, seeing her like this.

I kept my cool as well as possible. "It's okay Nitori-chan, it's okay. They're not going to hurt him anymore. Everything's alright."

I gently patted her forehead reassuringly, slowly repeating myself. "It's alright now… Everything's okay… They won't hurt him…."

Slowly, but surely, her heartbeat, which had been quick under my arm, began to slow down. The strain on her face began to relax. I didn't let up until she was completely calm once more.

"There…" I said once she had mostly leveled out. "That's better now, right?"

Her breathing was heavy. While she may have been calm, the worry on her face was still apparent. She turned to me. "Is he… Is he safe?" she asked.

"Yes, he's safe." I replied, touching my forehead to hers. My hand was now behind her head, holding her there. "They can't hurt him anymore."

I was curious to know who 'he' was, but that didn't matter right now.

"Am I…."

"Yes… You're safe too. They can't hurt either of you now."

"You… Who …."

"I'm here to protect you. You're safe here with me."

Suddenly, her face grew hot. I tried to keep myself from doing the same. Repeating those words wasn't just to calm down Nitori; I repeated them to keep myself from panicking too. Now that I was no longer on the verge of a panic attack, I was reconciling the fact that I was really, _really_ close to Nitori. Considerably closer than I felt comfortable with. But I didn't let go, nor did I draw away.

"W-will you… Will you stay… Here… With me?" she murmured.

I hesitated a moment. Now that I was more or less fully conscious of what I was doing, I wasn't sure how to respond.

Then I mentally smacked myself upside the head. What a stupid question to hesitate on.

"… Yes," I murmured back. "I'll stay here. With you."

She turned her body towards me. She drew one of her arms out from under the covers and wrapped it under my closest shoulder, placing her hand on my back. I thought I saw another tear slither down her face. "Please…."

I don't know why I did what I did next. I used all the strength I had, and once again, somehow willed my legs to move. I lifted up my left leg. Then my right. And I climbed into the bed next to Nitori. My arms tightened their grip and held her against me. I was no longer uncomfortable; just calm. All calm.

My legs were no longer mobile. I could feel my strength fading away once more. The pain in my chest was suddenly more apparent. I needed rest. My eyes were ready to close in deep sleep. I knew I was dangerously close to falling off the edge, but that didn't matter. I was here to protect Nitori.

"I'm here for you… Nitori-chan."

Her lips drew into a small smile. I heard her say one last thing before I drifted off into fitful rest.

"Thank you… Kaito-kun."

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_**Author's Notes:**_

The general mood in this chapter seemed to flux around a lot, huh? Guess that was just the way it turned out...

Don't you just hate it when you're having a perfectly reasonable or really good dream and it suddenly just screws itself over at the drop of a hat? As in, you don't wake up, but the dream just practically throws itself off a cliff? That was basically the main "side effect" of the medicine I'm talking about in this chapter; bipolar dreams. And this is Eirin who made the medicine here, so it's not completely unpossible, considering it's _Eirin._

You know, being in a physiology class helped with this. Aside from having the textbook at hand, prior knowledge of certain things - like, say, the anatomical positions of muscles - really did me a big favor.

This chapter, I personally like _a lot_. Sappy fluff moments aside, it lets me a bit more openly honest with myself. Why? Well, all that confusion with Kaito's emotions in the middle of the chapter? I actually do that in real life sometimes. I'm not kidding (well, this is getting rather personal, isn't it?). The mind works in very weird - and oftentimes completely awkward - ways, and this case is no different. Because as we all know, sometimes when the train of thought starts, it's hard to derail it. Anyone else who may have one way or another wound up running along a train of thought like the one in this chapter, raise your hands.

Yeah, that little spiel wasn't awkward at all, was it? Hehehe...

Anyways, the end of this chapter gives a _perfect_ set-up for the beginning of the next one. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~

(Sorry, I did say the real story started a couple chapters ago, but it's going to take a while to get out of Eientei, and re-rail the actual story, so bear with. Sorry!)


	22. Chapter 22: Various Wandering Thoughts

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

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**Chapter 22: Various Wandering Thoughts**

"Kaito-san…

"Kaito-san, please wake up."

I groaned.

"Kaito-san, you shouldn't be sleeping in that bed."

"Hm?" I responded groggily.

My eyes opened slightly. I could barely see.

I opened them a little more. I heard someone else groan. And was my forehead touching something?

My eyesight was swimming a little. But I could identify little bits of what I was seeing. A small nose. Eyes only just opening up. Two small pools of blue. Lightly curled blue hair. I blinked.

Nitori?

Wait a second….

"Gyah!"

CUNK!

"Agh!"

"Kaito-san!"

My hand shot up to my head, grabbing it in pain. Holy crap… what the hell just happened?

"Kaito-san, are you alright?"

I painfully opened my eyes. "Yeah… I'm-"

I stopped. It felt like a small part of my brain suddenly overloaded.

"Ah, Reisen-san!" I turned away, putting my other hand over my eyes.

"What are you-" Her voice instantly changed from confusion to embarrassment. "Eek, Kaito-san, you pervert!"

Oh my god, please, erase this all from my brain….

My brain, since it wasn't erasing what I wanted gone, was instead trying to remember and process what had just happened.

I had been sleeping alongside Nitori on a bed. The bed, however, was only made to accommodate one person at a time. When I had climbed into bed next to her before I fell asleep, I had precariously balanced myself on the edge of the bed. As a result of my freak-out upon Reisen's awakening, my arm had released its hold on Nitori, and I no longer held the weight necessary to balance myself on the bed. I promptly fell to the floor, hitting my head on the bedside table, and becoming firmly reacquainted with the floor. Reisen happened to be standing right next to me when this happened – apparently trying to shake me awake – and as a result of opening my eyes….

All modesty aside, that was a really light shade of pink.

"I-I'm sorry!" I hurriedly tried to explain. "I didn't mean to-"

BONK!

"OW!"

I curled up, clutching my head. Damnit, what was that? It had hit in exactly the same place as the bedside table!

Very carefully, I sat myself up and opened my eyes.

Reisen, as expected, was very red in the face, her hands protectively pulling down her skirt. Eirin was now in the room, a small mallet in her hand.

"E-Eirin-sama, what was that for?"

"You may be a patient under my care," she warned, threateningly tapping the mallet in her open palm. "But I will not have you sexually harassing other patients or my student."

"I wasn't even doing that!"

"Regardless, Reisen had told you to return to your bed if you ever got tired. You obviously disobeyed that order, since we found you sleeping in another patient's bed alongside them."

I rubbed my new goose egg in discomfort.

Aya had been right about what she said a few days ago; I was one of the unluckiest people she'd ever met.

Did life really like screwing with me this much? Come on, was I really such a cosmic plaything to the universe? I mean, these happenings could hardly be coincidences.

"Okay, I'm sorry," I apologized. "But Nitori-chan was having nightmares, and I was trying to calm her down before falling asleep."

"So you crawled into bed next to her?" Eirin asked flatly, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh, well…" I scratched my head in embarrassment. "Sort of…."

BONK!

"Agh!" Again with the mallet, again in the same place. "Damnit, Eirin, can you please not do that?"

"Serves you right, you little fool," she said abrasively before leaving.

I sighed, rubbing my head as I attempted to stand. Emphasis on 'attempted' because my legs, somehow, had gotten themselves tangled together with Nitori's while we were sleeping. They still were, and when I first tried to get up, the awkward position made me lose my balance and nearly crack my head against the bedside table again. Eventually, I did manage to, miraculously, get back on my own two feet without hitting anything, though it took a considerable amount of time, and some help from Reisen (during which time, I was, thankfully, kept from seeing up her skirt a second time).

"How long have I been asleep?" I asked Reisen after a small thank you. Somehow, I was able to stand normally, without assistance. My legs felt much less numb than before. Was I really healing that fast?

"Uh…." It took her a moment to get her wits back, and she answered hastily. "You've been asleep for at least three or four hours. We did not check back on you until just a couple minutes ago."

"So…." The voice snapped us both back to attention. Nitori had spoken.

Nitori still looked and sounded tired, and she didn't rise from the bed, but her head was up, and she eyed me with a look I couldn't identify. I couldn't identify it because her eyes were still half closed. The fact that she was awake, however, was enough to thoroughly amaze both of us.

"So you… you were… From before…."

My face went bright red. "U-u-um, well, I… Y-you were… I-I was…."

"You… protected me…."

A small smile. "Thank you…."

I blinked. She wasn't accusing me of anything. She had just come out with more or less the exact opposite; she was thanking me for being there for her. For all the things I had said.

Or possibly for the events from three nights ago. I couldn't tell.

All the same, this, if possible, made me flush a deeper shade of red. "W-well… Y-you're welcome… Nitori-chan." I looked away.

I thought I heard a giggle. "You look… kind of cute… like that…."

A soft _fwump_ of something hitting a pillow. Her head had flopped over, asleep.

I was pretty sure if I looked into a mirror, I would find a tomato staring back at me. Geez, Nitori had been really outspoken at that moment.

"I think I understand now…."

"Huh?" The statement had come so suddenly, I could only gawk at Reisen. I didn't like the way she said that. "U-understand what?"

"Oshisho-sama had said there would be some minor side effects from the medicine she gave me."

I kept myself from breathing a sigh of relief. I had taken that _completely _the wrong way.

That aside… there were side effects?

She read my face, because I made no attempt to conceal my confusion (though truthfully, my confusion was to hide my relief). "The medicine I fed the two of you to treat for the poison had been made from scratch by my oshisho-sama," she explained. "She had said to expect possible side effects, since she hadn't had time to work out the kinks yet. One of them that she mentioned was the possibility of the patient acting like they had been exposed to alcoholic drinks."

I nodded. That would explain why Nitori had acted completely differently from her usual self.

Reisen looked thoughtful for a second. "There was one other; she had also said something else about dreams, but I can't remember what it is."

Dreams, huh? I supposed that the fact I still remembered my dream from a few hours ago could have been part of a side effect. I didn't say anything, though; the dream was not something I enjoyed remembering.

Naturally, Reisen just went and asked me. "Did you experience anything weird with your dreams?"

"Not really…" I lied. I really didn't want to have to recount on my dream. "I can't recall."

"I see…."

I looked into her eyes for a second, wondering if she would inquire further. Suddenly, she gasped, and turned away.

"Y-you shouldn't look into my eyes." She had said it plainly.

"Huh? Why?"

She looked at me tentatively. I actually averted my eyes away from hers, taking her warning.

"I'm sure you already know I'm actually a rabbit. But I'm not from Gensokyo; I'm a Lunar Rabbit. I came from the Moon Capital to Gensokyo some time ago."

I nodded.

"Being a Lunar Rabbit, my eyes hold the moon's power. Many have said that the moon can drive people insane. I'm able to do that to others; I can instill lunar madness in those who look into my eyes too long, or those that I choose to inflict. Also, I'm able to manipulate wavelengths, so I can cause others to go insane from frightening illusions."

My eyes went wide. Even though she had warned me not to, I looked directly into Reisen's eyes. But then another question was raised in my head.

"But, from what I've seen so far, you're pretty mild in terms of personality. You don't seem like the kind of person that would do that to anyone."

She chuckled. "I don't, do I? But I've done it before. On the day of the imperishable night, I tried to use my insanity-inducing eyes to stop a shrine maiden and a powerful youkai from breaking into Eientei. I failed."

She looked downcast. A shrine maiden and a youkai? I wasn't sure who the youkai was, but the shrine maiden was probably Reimu.

And if Reimu had been the shrine maiden, then the youkai was probably Yukari. Gee, she really got around sometimes, didn't she?

And I noticed something; Mystia had said something about an imperishable night as well. Were they talking about the same thing? Maybe.

Regardless, what she was saying intrigued me. Truthfully, I was interested in the moon, despite not being able to go outside at night now. She had said she came from the 'moon capital' so that meant that there were others like her? With the same abilities, maybe?

"Ah, but it's okay," Reisen said in an upbeat tone. "Kaguya no kimi is still here, so I'm happy."

"I see." Perhaps I would ask Kaguya about that incident if I ever got to meet her.

Suddenly, my curiosity seemed to get the better of me. "Would you mind showing your madness-inducing eye to me?"

"Eh?" She was obviously confused. "Why would you ask that of me?"

"I was just a little curious." I waved my hands apologetically. "You had said you could create illusions with your eyes, so I kind of wanted to see it. If you don't want to show me, that's fine."

"N-no, no, it's quite alright," she returned. "It just feels strange, being requested something like that. No one's ever asked me something like that. But if you'd like a demonstration, then I'd be happy to comply."

"Uh… alright then. Thank you." I felt a little bad, instilling that feeling of oddity, but my curiosity wanted to know.

Reisen nodded. Then she closed her eyes and gained a stern look on her face. I said nothing as she focused for a few seconds.

Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, flashing a brilliant red straight into my eyes.

My vision twisted itself for a split second. And in the next, Reisen was gone.

"Whoa…." So this was what she had meant by wave manipulation; she disappeared through the manipulation of light waves. I wondered how many different kinds of waves she could manipulate.

Or maybe… she had looked me straight in the eyes. Could this be an illusion that she was setting up for me, like I had asked?

I took a quick look around me. Nothing had really changed, save for a missing Reisen. Nitori was still in the bed next to us, and the window, still slightly open, was letting in a bright light onto the floor, indicating it was close to noon.

"Hey, Reisen," I said casually. "This is actually pretty cool. Where are you, anyways?"

No response.

"Hello?"

I sighed to myself. Of course Reisen wouldn't respond. If she was invisible, then why would she say anything to give herself away?

"Alright Reisen, that's enough," I said. "I think you can…."

I trailed off.

Were my eyes deceiving me?

The wall was melting. As in, melting like it was suddenly made of wet paint on a black canvas.

"Uh, okay…" I said nervously. "T-this is just an illusion… right?"

Oh man, did I even believe my own words?

The walls continued dripping down, leaving nothing in their place. Everything joined the walls; objects that were normally there died away with the walls. I looked up, and the ceiling was gone entirely. Everything was turning black.

My dream suddenly came back to haunt me, and I began to freak out. "R-Reisen, could you please stop?"

The illusion did not let up. In fact, the walls seemed to melt even faster.

"Alright, alright," I said calmly. "I get the idea now. Could you please cut it out?"

I looked to my right. The bed was no longer there. Nitori had disappeared.

Suddenly, I found myself sinking into the floor. A black goop was crawling its way up my leg, slowly consuming the bottom of the white robe I was wearing.

"A-alright, this is more than enough!" I could barely keep the panic out of my voice. The black goop was up to my knees now, and refused to stop.

I was going to be swallowed up… Surrounded by nothing for eternity.

"Please, stop!"

I threw myself forward, in a desperate attempt to get myself out of the goop. The wall of black shattered, like it was nothing more than a thin pane of glass. Which, in a sense, it was. But then I realized that since it was an illusion, my real self actually threw itself forward. In real time. And as the black cleared away, I realized that Reisen was still standing right in front of me.

My mind had just enough time to process the words _Oh crap_ before the two of us hit the floor.

I found myself kneeling over Reisen in a position very reminiscent of how I had run into Nitori. The sole difference was that, thankfully, I hadn't jumped as low as I had last time, and I had grabbed Reisen by the shoulders instead.

As it was, Reisen was still blushing. "U-um…" she started slowly.

I didn't need her to finish. "Y-yeah, right, sorry."

I pushed myself backwards and off of Reisen, sighing in relief at the fact history had chosen not to repeat itself. At least, not completely.

"My bad, Reisen-san," I apologized, scratching my head. "Your illusion certainly was terrifying. I should have better prepared myself mentally."

"No, I-I'm sorry, Kaito-san," she gave back, bowing.

"Why are you apologizing, Reisen-san? It was my curiosity that-"

I didn't get to finish my sentence. A massive flash of white light appeared between the two of us.

Reisen screamed. I didn't do much except put my hands in front of my eyes. The light was almost too bright for me to look into it. Spots danced in my eyes as I shielded my vision.

In a second, the light faded away in an instant, leaving a pure white card floating there.

This was just like what happened that other night… so that meant….

I grabbed the card immediately. Reisen was still slightly blinded by the light, and didn't look over until a moment later.

The card was as white as the first one Again, a picture drew itself out; it was an all-encompassing flood of water superposed by a set of red, diamond eyes.

I flipped it over to the back. I didn't read it out loud, but handed Reisen the card. It had read _Break Sign: Flood of Insanity_.

Reisen didn't say anything for a moment. Then she returned the card and said "This is how spell cards usually appear before their user once they gain the proper power to use it. This is supposed to be your card."

"Seriously?" I couldn't believe it. This was now my second personal spell card. And I had no idea how powerful this one was. What the hell?

She nodded. "Spell cards are used as a type of containment for the abilities of those who have them. But I thought you were a normal human. You're not supposed to have any powers, right?"

"I thought that too… But listen…."

I recounted on how I had arrived in Gensokyo in the first place, and who I'd met. But my heart wasn't into telling the story; I was too preoccupied with the fact that this was the second spell card I'd gained since I'd arrived here. And it was really, _really_ freaking me out. One part of me was itching to try it out and see what would happen, but the other part was absolutely, vehemently denying that this should be happening in the first place.

I had known something was going to happen to me the moment I saw Eirin fly off and Yukari sink into a portal in the ground. But this was just a little too much. Sure, I was going to wind up living in what was more or less a fantasy world, but still… Ever since I'd arrived here, nothing was ever normal. At least, not in certain senses of the word. I was being changed in ways unimaginable too. What was I going to do?

Reisen thought for a moment once I had finished. "Well, if anyone is going to have the answers to why all this is happening, then it will be Yukari-sama."

I nodded in agreement. I had figured something like that some time before I black out three days ago.

"But," she continued. "You're not in much of a condition to go out and look for Yukari-sama yet. You need to stay here and recover before going out.

"And besides, you don't want to leave Nitori-chan here, do you?"

She looked at me in a way that was both quizzical and a little knowing, which sort of weirded me out. I could feel a little heat going to my face, but I faced the fact easily; she was right. Despite not knowing her for very long, I couldn't stand leaving Nitori behind just so I could find answers. It sounded stupid, sure, but I just couldn't. I nodded a little hazily.

She smiled cheerfully. "Aw, that's so sweet! You really like her, don't you?"

"Eh?" _That_ made my face burn up. I turned away. "W-w-well…" I stuttered out. "I-it would be bad of me i-if I just… y-you know, l-left her here. A-after all, we went through a lot that night… A-and I was sort of… the one who dragged her into it…."

"Oh? And what happened that night?"

"Well…." I didn't want to tell her about that night. It involved some things a little too… unsettling for me to describe.

"You won't tell me? Okay, I understand."

"You do?"

"Of course. You did some unspeakable things. I understand."

"Wait, what? Oh come on, get serious, Reisen! No I didn't!"

"Are you sure?"

Her face looked like it was hardly trying to retain any sign of happiness. In fact….

"Y-you're teasing me!"

"No I'm not!" She was trying very hard to hold back now.

"Yes you are! Look at your face!" I was in complete disbelief. What in the world was Reisen doing?

She laughed then. "I'm sorry, Kaito-san. I think Tewi is beginning to rub off on me. But tell me honestly; do you like her or not?"

I looked into her eyes for a second. Then I sighed; there wasn't much point in trying to argue or deny.

"Yeah… a little, I guess. I'm not totally sure why, though. I mean, sure, she's cute, and smart, and… w-well, anyways… I've barely known her for a full day. Well… actually, I've technically known her for about four days, but three of those were… oh, that's beside the point! It's only been four days, but this is happening already. It's all going so fast, that I don't know how I'm supposed to react to it. It feels like fate is taking the red string and wrapping it around my neck, telling me to wake up."

I groaned, perhaps out of frustration. I wiped my hands over my face. "This is so odd! I don't even fully understand what's going on. I thought there was no such thing as 'love at first sight' in real life. And even then, if it _was_ that, then it would have hit right when I met her, not a few hours after. This simply doesn't make sense to me. There's so much I'm already dealing with right now. I thought I was trying to find out more about my lost memories, not get caught up like this."

"But you are, aren't you?"

I blinked. What?

Reisen's smile was soft. "You're finding out more about yourself even as you spend time around someone you like, aren't you? Did you find out any more about yourself during that night with Nitori-san?"

I thought for a bit.

Come to think of it, she was right in a way; seeing Nitori in danger the way she was that night had triggered a sense of protectiveness I didn't feel even when protecting myself. In somewhat of the same case, I didn't feel the same way when protecting Patchouli's library, or Utsuho either.

"Well…"I said hesitantly. "I found out I was willing to go the extra distance for Nitori-chan… W-wait a second, that came out weird!"

She giggled. "No, it's quite alright."

Suddenly, she gasped. "Oh, I completely forgot! Are you hungry right now, Kaito?"

"Er…." The change in topic was pretty random, but once again, my stomach chose that exact moment to growl, except much more loudly than the other night. Considering I hadn't eaten for the better part of about four days, it made sense. "Y-yeah, I am."

Reisen turned to guide me to a place to grab something to eat. I looked back on Nitori as I left the room. She was sleeping peacefully. I sighed a little. I wasn't sure if it was out of contentment or exasperation. Maybe a little of both; exasperation at my idiotic emotions, but contentment at being here.

_Sleep tight, Nitori-chan. I'll be here to protect you._

I thought I saw her smile before I left.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

This is why - if you're a guy - you never fall asleep in a hospital next to a female patient in a world where almost everyone else is also female (even if the girl-guy ratio is normal, it's still not a very good idea). The result oftentimes will not be very pleasant. Especially if the main doctor in the house is someone like Eirin, who is in some ways an opposite to Mr. T; she will not pity the fool, nor tolerate the fool. The fool will probably get whacked.

Or shot by an arrow, depending on if she has her bow on hand or not. In either case, it'll be quite painful.

Despite the oddness overall, progress is actually being made in this chapter. At least, in my eyes. Though in some ways, one could say things are going a little too quickly, as the lampshading (maybe? I think I might be using the trope incorrectly) from Kaito may indicate. I'm not that sure if the progress being made is too quick, or too forced (reviews may say otherwise, but the doubt is still there) so a word or two on that would be appreciated (yeah, I'm pretty much asking for critique. I know it sounds stupid, but a little help could go a long way).

Anyways, this chapter was rather filler-ific. I would have chosen not to write it, if at all possible, but it helps smooth out some transitions going into the next chapter or two (and the next chapter is a filler too, just as a heads up). So I apologize for the random crap being thrown around, and I'm still trying to work the main story back on track as soon as possible.

Since the next chapter is a filler, I won't bother saying anything about it. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	23. Chapter 23: Within The Eternal House

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 23: Within The Eternal House**

"Ah, that was a great meal! Those rabbit maids sure know how to cook up a good lunch."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it."

Reisen and I were walking out of the dining hall after a good lunch. Despite how loud my stomach had growled, I actually didn't eat that much, only being able to manage a simple sandwich, a banana, some slices of cooked carrots (there were a _lot_ of cooked carrots), and a glass of water. I still felt considerably better after the meal, though.

On top of now having a full stomach, my body still seemed to be healing remarkably fast. My chest now only felt an occasional twinge of discomfort, and my legs had lost most of their numbness. Reisen expressed her surprise at my quick healing, and said that I would be back into near-perfect condition in only a day or two.

"Near-perfect?" I had asked while we were eating. "What do you mean?"

She pointed at my chest.

"Oh…." I had wondered if the claw slash on my chest would ever fully heal. That simple gestured was enough to tell me that it wouldn't, and if I wasn't careful in the near future, the wound would open back up. I was likely to know and feel the scar for the rest of my life.

I didn't let it show, though. Besides, what was wrong with a scar? I would just have to be careful later on.

"Hey Reisen-san," I asked as we walked out. "This is a hospital, right? Are there any other patients besides Nitori-chan and I?"

She shook her head. "Few people ever come here for medical treatment, because it's in the middle of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. However, more people have been coming since the day of the imperishable night, but mostly for pharmaceutical purposes."

"Eirin-sama runs a pharmacy here?"

"Yes. It's near the front of the mansion. Would you like to see?"

I nodded.

* * *

The pharmacy was actually a little smaller than I had expected. Or more like a lot smaller. We had come in through the back door, so the room we entered was filled with cabinets stuffed with reagents and pre-prepared medicine ready for sale. The counter was only about waist height, and the waiting room itself was only a couple steps off of being a closet.

Eirin was sitting on the only stool behind the counter, reading a book. I couldn't read the title, but it was pretty thick, and considering how smart Eirin was (at least, from what I could see), I didn't think she could be studying anything other than some kind of textbook or other.

She hadn't heard the door closing. Even as we watched, Eirin suddenly sighed, picked up a pen on the counter, and scribbled notes into the book. Was she correcting the content inside or something?

"That's the newest book Eirin managed to get her hands on," Reisen whispered. I didn't understand why she had to whisper to me. "Whenever she finds mistakes in books, she corrects them herself."

"She's corrected a lot of them before, I'm guessing?"

"Definitely. I lost count after about thirty or forty, and I'm quite sure she's corrected many more."

"And you would be right."

The sudden voice snapped us out of our little conversation. The book was closed now, and Eirin was looking right at us.

"You didn't think that I wouldn't notice the back door opening, did you?"

Considering how surprised we looked, I didn't think we would have to say yes.

She got off her stool and walked over. "So you're giving this boy a mini tour of the mansion?"

"Yes, oshisho-sama."

"Hm…." She gave me a quick look-over. "Well, seeing as you're well enough to walk around, I don't see any reason to keep you in bed. Better to have you out of bed and exercising before your leg muscles begin going through atrophy. You'd better not strain yourself though; we wouldn't want your stitches to open back up. Though your rate of recovery really is something to marvel at; I've never seen anyone – much less a human – heal nearly as fast as you."

She began leading me on a short tour through the small pharmacy, with Reisen following behind.

"I run my pharmacy much in the same way you humans do in the outside world," she began. "However, my services are much faster than that of your world, though that's partially because few people ever visit Eientei in the first place. But I don't need to have the patient be checked at a separate appointment, because I can simply examine and diagnose them here at the desk."

She stopped at one of the many cabinets. I looked a little closer at one of the drawers and saw a name inscribed on a tiny plaque.

"However, aside from running a pharmacy, I go by a different system that is effective in its own right. Every family in Gensokyo has a consigned box for medicine that is held at home. With every passing of the seasons, the rabbits of Eientei go on a round trip through the village to check what medicine has been used from the box, restock it, and collect payment for the medicine used. If there are any special cases that require treatment, then the family can come directly here for medicine. I make the medicine fresh with the ingredients on hand, and give it to them on the spot. There are even a couple of family boxes that are kept on stock for the families that can afford to do so. Once the medicine has done its job, then they pay me. I wait for payment as long as is needed."

"As long as is needed?" I asked. "So you don't ask for it immediately?"

"No. I don't believe in asking for immediate payment. Besides, my prices are reasonable, and no one has refused or forgotten a payment before, so I have no reason to change my policy."

That more or less spoke for itself; the medicine Eirin made was absolutely top-notch, no questions asked. She certainly was one amazingly accomplished doctor.

Another sound came into hearing. It was some sort of beeping.

"Eh?" Eirin reacted immediately, heading towards the sound. Reisen and I followed along.

It had been coming from one of the top drawers. Eirin took a moment to float up and check. From the ground, I saw a small beeping light on the drawer.

"Ah, I almost forgot. It's time for the Feh-Jian family's house call."

I blinked a little. "I thought that was an old-fashioned tradition from my world?"

"It is, but it's also a good method for me to get in touch with some of my patients and prevent diseases before they happen. I do not make them often, since it's usually a rabbit or two that does so, but when I do, I make sure that the family is doing well."

She promptly grabbed a small bag waiting by the counter and started to leave. "Reisen, you're in charge of the pharmacy while I'm gone. You know how the whole system works."

"Yes, oshisho-sama!"

Without another word, she was gone.

I scratched my head. "Gee, that was fast. So you've done this before?"

Reisen took a seat on the stool. "It hasn't happened very often, but on occasions like these, oshisho-sama relies on me to hold the home front."

The back door opened again. A rabbit fairy came out.

"Reisen-san," the fairy said, bowing. "Kaguya no kimi requests your presence."

"Eh? But oshisho-sama just left on a house call. I need to watch the pharmacy while she's gone."

"I apologize, but regardless, Kaguya no kimi wishes to see you." With that, the fairy left.

I sighed. Sometimes, developments could get a little out of hand. "I'll watch the pharmacy. Go see what Kaguya no kimi wants."

Reisen brightened up. "Really? Thank you, Kaito-san!"

I nodded. "Just tell me how the names are organized on the cabinets, and I should be fine."

I just hoped that no one came for special treatment, though, because I would be screwed then.

* * *

There was no clock on the wall, so it was pretty hard to tell how much time had passed.

I didn't really find myself bored, though. It was odd; I was surrounded by pretty much nothing to do, and yet I wasn't bored at all. I just sort of leaned back on the stool and waited.

And consequently toppled over the stool. That wasn't very fun, but at least it felt like I was doing something. Sort of.

I spent my time reading (or rather, skimming) through the book Eirin had left on the table. I was surprised by how many corrections she had made up to the point where she had left off; on average, I found at least one correction every twenty to twenty five pages or so. Normally, I wouldn't have considered this to be that much, but seeing as how the book was about a thousand five hundred pages, and she had finished with about half so far (she had left a bookmark), that was pretty surprising.

In the middle of reading, the door opened. "Eirin-sa… Hm?"

I turned to see a blonde teenager standing there. She was about my age, wearing a blue dress with pink ribbons, and some kind of white sheet over her shoulders (I wasn't sure what the name for it would be). In one hand was a heavy-looking black book tied with pink ribbons, and floating alongside her was a small blonde doll in a black dress.

"Uh, hello there," I greeted. I found it strangely weird being polite to her. Maybe it was because of the doll, and how it reminded me of Medicine. But I pushed those thoughts aside. "I'm Kaito. Eirin-sama isn't here right now, so I'm taking her place on the counter."

"I can see that," she said plainly, walking up to the counter. "But I thought that if Eirin-san wasn't here, the other rabbit would be here. Her name was…."

"You mean Reisen-san, right? Kaguya no kimi called her away some time ago, and she hasn't returned yet."

"Ah. Well, I'm Alice. Alice Margatroid."

"Alice?" The name rang a bell dating back to when I first arrived. "So you're here to pick up your usual order?"

Her eyes went wide for a second. Then they narrowed, glaring at me. "Where did you hear that? I've never told anyone about that."

I realized I'd touched on something sensitive instantly. "S-sorry, Alice-san," I apologized. "Eirin-sama… mentioned something about it in passing when I first met her. She said she was expecting you soon at that time, so I thought you had been here plenty of times before."

She gave me a look out of one eye, piercing straight through me. Ah, man, why did I have to touch on a sensitive subject like that?

She sighed. "It doesn't matter. As long as you don't tell anyone else, got that?"

I nodded enthusiastically. "Don't worry. I don't even know what the 'usual order' is anyways. My lips are sealed."

"Hmph. Very well, then. Shanghai!"

The little doll floating by her jerked up. Alice raised her left hand, and I noticed there were numerous strings wrapped around the tips of her fingers. One of them glowed with a dull pink energy.

Two fingers twitched, and the little doll girl, Shanghai, flew over to a drawer nestled close to the upper right of the very back of the room. A thin line of pink tethered the doll to Alice's hand. With a few expert twitches – in a manner that seemed near superhuman – Shanghai pulled open the drawer, grabbed a small box out of it, closed it, and flew right back to Alice.

"Wow," I said, impressed. "You're a puppeteer?"

"That's right, though it's sort of a hobby of mine rather than my focus of magical abilities. I am quite skilled with it, though."

Shanghai dropped off the little package into Alice's hand. She smiled and patted the doll on the head. "I do wish I could make a doll that could act on its own, though. It's sort of a dream goal I've set for myself."

"Huh…."

The back door opened. I turned to see Reisen.

"Ah, Reisen-san, you're back," I said, delighted. "Would you mind taking care of the transaction here?" I wasn't particularly against handling money; I just didn't know how the money system worked around here. Sure, I could count a few yen (if that was what they used), but that was about it. My confidence in being able to handle money was zilch.

"Oh, Alice-san!" Reisen hurried over. "I hope you didn't have any trouble with your medicine."

"No, it's fine. I simply had Shanghai get it for me."

"Ah, that's good."

"Well then, I will be taking my leave now."

Alice left a small pouch on the table, and turned to leave. She stopped at the door.

"Kaito, was it?"

"Huh? Yes."

"You don't look like you're from around here. You're not from Gensokyo, are you?"

Well, she figured that out pretty quickly. "No, I'm not. Is something wrong?"

"No, no, nothing's wrong."

She looked at me with a small grin. "I was just wondering who had managed to beat Marisa like that. Considering how well you 'cut her up' I'd say you were quite a fighter."

My face felt a little hot. "Uh… well, that wasn't exactly my intention… I-I just didn't know how Sakuya's spell cards worked, that's all. I don't even like fighting."

"Hm… Well, from what I heard, you also have very few of your memories, am I right?"

"Yes, that's true as well."

"I see…." She looked thoughtful for a moment. She perked up a single moment, and I realized she had something in mind.

"Would you happen to have time to visit my cottage sometime in the future?"

"Eh? Why would you ask that of me?" Seriously, that was pretty random.

"Because you sound like an interesting character. Like one of the characters out of one of Patchouli's books. I'd like to hear a little more about you.

"Also, I have… something… I wish to do in the near future, and I need someone to help out around the house for a little while. You don't look like you have much to do here, so I thought I would ask you."

I considered her offer for a moment. She had a point; I wasn't going to have much to do around here. But I didn't want to just up and leave Nitori behind to heal by herself.

I made my decision quickly. "Sorry, Alice-san, I'd love to help you, but I have a friend who's still here under Eirin-sama's care, and I don't want to leave her side. Perhaps some other day?"

Alice gave me a funny look. But she shrugged. "If that's the case, then I will not disturb you. Good day." With that, she took her leave. Shanghai waved goodbye before following.

"You seemed to have handled that nicely," Reisen commented a little sarcastically.

"Handled what? Turning down an invitation?"

"Well, perhaps you could say that." She took back her seat at the stool. "Thank you for watching the counter. By the way, I checked up on Nitori-san, and she seems to be awake now. If you'd like, you can go back inside and talk with her."

"Really? Thanks, Reisen-san!"

* * *

A pair of blue eyes brightened as I walked into the room.

"Kaito-kun!" She was actually sitting up now.

"Nitori-chan!"

I dismissed the fairy that had led me back to the room. It bowed, and drifted off.

"How're you feeling?" I asked as I sat down next to the bed. "Better I hope?"

"Of course," she said, smiling. "I still can't really feel my legs, and my arms are sore, but I'm much better than before."

"That's great."

A couple seconds passed in silence.

I was going to open my mouth again, but… ah, crud, I'd come in here without a single topic. Geez, I really should have thought this through a little more.

Yet it didn't really devolve into an awkward situation. Weird. Awkward situations happened pretty much any time two people wound up alone together in a hospital room with nothing to talk about. Why not now? Were we simply enjoying each other's company?

Wait, what?

I think my sudden spike of awkwardness at that point must have gotten to Nitori, because she began to look nervous.

_Damnit you idiot!_ I thought. _Think of something!_

I cast around for a topic. For at least ten seconds, I did this, and yet nothing came up. Oh come on, could I seriously not think of anything?

Then, thankfully, Nitori spoke.

"Th-thank you…."

I didn't respond at first. I couldn't find a way to respond. Why?

"Reisen-san brought me up to speed with what happened three days ago. You… You've saved my life twice now. It's strange, being saved by someone you hardly know, but… thank you so much, Kaito-kun."

I was nearly at a loss for words. That more or less echoed some of my own thoughts.

"Well…" I began. "Thank you too."

"Huh?"

"If you hadn't taken those poison darts for me, or come in with that spell card when you did, then I wouldn't have survived either. I should be thanking you too."

She grew flustered. "B-but the only reason you got hurt was because I came in the first place!"

"This?" I pointed at my chest. "This will heal. Even now, I don't feel it that much anymore. A life can't be taken back, and you've saved mine too."

Nitori was the one who didn't respond this time. Again, her face was a deep red. Man, did both of us have chronic blushing syndrome or something?

I smiled gently at her. I thought it would have helped calm her down a bit. Instead, she drew the covers over her head, shielding her face. I raised an eyebrow.

For several more seconds, neither of us did anything. _Now_ it was _really _awkward. I supposed that it was inevitable, but still….

"Uh…" I began. My mind cast around for something. This time, something came to mind. And it raised a question. "How did you get there so fast anyways?"

"Hm?" She pulled off the covers just enough to expose her eyes (I couldn't help it, but I thought she looked ridiculously cute doing that).

"Eh…." It took a second to work my thoughts out of the sudden strike of cuteness. "You managed to get to the place where I was fighting Mystia and Medicine really quickly, as if you knew exactly where we were. How? I mean, I'm pretty sure it would have taken time to… you know, dress back up, and by then, you would have completely lost track of us. And even if you did know where we were, it would've taken quite a bit of time to get there."

"Oh…." She thought for a moment, putting down the covers completely. "Yukari-sama warped me there.

"Yukari-sama? She helped you too?"

"Too?"

"I only managed to find you in Mystia's food cart because Yukari-sama warped me there."

"Ah…."

This put another spin into things. Yukari had actually helped me a second time. This didn't make _any_ sense at all. Why was she taking such an interest in me? She had said that I was supposed to be some kind of 'personal experiment' or something. I thought an experiment was supposed to take its natural course, not get helped along.

I sighed internally. This just went on the expanding list of things I needed to ask Yukari about later.

"Oh yeah," Nitori said, interrupting my train of thought. "Reisen-san also said you had a new spell card?"

"Huh? Oh, right. I do. Two, actually."

"Two cards?"

"Yeah. Here, look." I pulled the two cards out of my pocket and handed them to her. She quickly scanned over both of them.

"Wow…" she uttered. "You've become this strong already?"

"Apparently, yes, I have. I don't even know how. But I'm glad I've become this way. If that first spell card hadn't appeared, I wouldn't have been able to save you."

"Which one? This one?" She held up the _Time Storm_ card. I nodded.

I wasn't sure how her face was read as she handed back the cards.

"So what now?" I asked once I slipped the cards back into my pocket.

"Now? Well…." Nitori thought for a moment. She gasped. "Oh no!"

"Something wrong?"

"M-my electric generator!"

Oh shoot! We'd completely forgotten about it! Nitori was supposed to have given the generator to Kanako (whoever she was) two days ago. Unfortunately for her, she had spent those two days overtime knocked out on account of me.

"D-did anyone say anything about how long we were going to stay here?" she asked urgently.

I shook my head. "Not that I know of, no."

I could practically feel my emotions dropping as I looked at Nitori's crestfallen face.

"Hey, I know it's late," I said, trying to comfort her. "But there's not much we can do about that now. All we can do is wait until we get better, then deliver the generator once we leave Eientei."

She didn't seem very convinced, but she nodded.

I heard the door open. Eirin was there when I looked over. She seemed somewhat pleased.

"Oh, Eirin-sama," I greeted. "Your house call went well, I'm guessing?"

"Quite so," she agreed. "And I see that your friend is awake now, Kaito-san."

"Yes, she woke up just a little while ago, at least according to Reisen-san."

"Hm… very well then. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the room for a little while, Kaito-san."

"Huh? What for?"

"I need to make sure your friend is fine after sleeping for three days on end. You've healed quite spectacularly for a human, and your friend is a youkai, but all the same, I have to take care of my patients. Also, my mistress has requested your presence."

"Eh? Kaguya no kimi wishes to see me?"

"That's right."

She leaned out the doorway and called out for a maid. A rabbit flitted into the room at once.

"Take Kaito-san to the mistress's chambers."

"Hai!"

I rose from my seat and headed for the door, following the rabbit out.

"I trust you know how to address the mistress properly?" Eirin asked before I went out the door.

"Y-yes, Eirin-sama."

Honestly, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Again, I was diving into the unknown, meeting with someone high and mighty, and judging from how Kaguya was supposed to be Eirin's mistress, I was pretty scared. One after the other, important people were being thrown at me. Sure, it sounded nice to be meeting so many important people, but damn, was I playing a dangerous game. One screw up and every single one of them would come down on me harder than a massive building.

I seriously hoped that I wouldn't screw up.

Eirin let me pass without saying a word to me.

* * *

The hallways of Eientei were longer than I had expected.

Perhaps that was just due to its inherent size, but I was still having a little trouble keeping track of how many doors we passed without going up a single flight of stairs. Was this hall endless?

After at least a minute of pacing, the hallways came to an end. The very last door sitting at the end of the hall was different. Not just because it was colored with a strange rainbow hue compared to the brown doors that comprised every single other part of the hallway, but something about it just _felt_ different. It was obvious Kaguya was behind this door.

"My work here is done," the rabbit maid said plainly. It bowed to me. "Please remember to be respectful to the mistress."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

It left.

I was standing alone before a rainbow-colored door.

I breathed in once, and reached out to turn the door handle.

Something clicked as I opened the door to reveal what looked like a large, empty wooden room.

Huh? Had that maid led me down the wrong corridor?

I stepped inside the room.

And suddenly everything changed.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

God, I feel like I did a complete crap job on this chapter. Seriously, it's like all my heart had been poured into the previous two chapters, and I just went and died on this one. Or rather, at least around the middle or so. The beginning was going fine, but when I hit the part with Alice...

Yeah, shitake happened. But I finished the chapter anyways. My pace was picked back up by the time I hit the next conversation, so yeah.

But... gah! Geez, this chapter was frustrating. Even now, it's bugging me. That may just be for some other reason than the chapter being a complete piece of crap, but still...

Ah well, not much I can do about that, I suppose. I can't find any way to change it for the better (probably because I simply can't bother myself enough to do so), so I'll just leave it as is.

The next chapter is going to be one hell of a fight in Eientei. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	24. Chapter 24: An Impossible Battle

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 24: An Impossible Battle**

My foot fell into open space.

"Ack!"

I toppled forward into empty air. I managed to catch myself in midair before falling much more than a few feet.

"What the…."

Was this supposed to be some kind of sick joke?

Then I noticed what I had stepped into.

"Whoa…."

That was the only word I could say. Not much else could describe the world around me. Because there was no world to speak of.

Everywhere around me, there were stars. An endless expanse of celestial bodies sprinkled across an infinite landscape. There were several swirls and brightened shapes off in the distance. Other galaxies. Spanning throughout a never-ending universe.

I looked to my right, and there was the moon. Or, most of it. A small part of the pale globe of rock and craters was overshadowed by some other celestial body that I could not see. To my left was the sun. The single star of the solar system that was closer than a few light years away. It was a wonder I could look right at it without completely frying my vision.

"Wow…." The sight was absolutely breathtaking. An unimpeded view of the universe in a single room. What was once far was much closer, and that which one could not normally see was much clearer. Constellations drew themselves across the sky, alongside galaxies that shined that much brighter with nothing in the way.

"Lovely, isn't it?"

The sudden voice snapped me from my reverie. It was light and lilting, yet carried the weight of royalty.

I looked up.

My heart froze.

Imagine the most beautiful person you've ever known, or could think of off the top of your head. Whether or not she fit the picture, this girl could probably trump _any_ "dream girl" you could think of.

Her long black hair fell as would curtains of a moonless night, her shortened bangs accentuating her round, pale face and dark brown eyes. Her pink shirt had bows racing down the front, with clouds decorating the ends of her sleeves, and seemed to emphasize her more prominent features. Bamboo and flowers adorned her long red dress.

You could throw garbage upon her, and she would not look ugly. Mar her face and she would not look at all damaged. Even if you didn't feel like she fit your tastes, she emanated an absolute air of splendor and regality that made it hard to look at her at times, since it felt like she radiated brilliance at a greater magnitude than the sun, and yet you could not turn away.

The feeling was impossible to put into words. However, it very literally felt like her aura was flooding and drowning out all conscious thought from my mind. I couldn't think, nor speak, for perhaps several seconds. So lost was I in her magnificence.

She looked at me a little mischievously. "Perhaps it would be better for you to not stare, young man."

I blinked a couple times, dazed. "W-what? Oh, s-sorry." I shook my head vigorously; it felt like a strange cloud had been cleared from my mind.

She chuckled. "It's quite alright. More than my fair share of men _and_ women have fallen head over heels upon hearing or seeing my apparent beauty."

I supposed that that statement was well-backed, considering how stunned I had been just a moment ago.

"But enough of that. Your name is Kaito, is it not?"

"That's right. And your name is Kaguya, right?"

"Indeed. I am Kaguya Houraisan of Eientei. Like Eirin, I am a Lunarian, and once lived in the Moon Capital centuries ago."

"I see… If I may ask, Kaguya-hime, if you are a Lunarian, why are you living here on Earth in Gensokyo?"

She smiled slightly. "Alas, that's a rather long story, and I did not invite you here so I could talk about myself. Let us say that I did wrong in the capital, and that wrong resulted in being exiled from the moon for a rather long time. When emissaries from the moon came to take me home, I did not want to return, and in order to escape, I fled to Gensokyo. For that reason, I am still here, and so is Eirin, as she had a hand in the crime I was punished for, and she believed she did not deserve to leave either, since she had escaped the punishment I was dealt."

I nodded. It sure sounded like a fantastic story, but perhaps that was for another time.

"Now that your curiosity seems satisfied, please, tell me more about yourself. I'd like to know more about my guest who supposedly came from beyond Gensokyo's borders."

Something in me said _Why am I not surprised by that?_

Naturally, I didn't say that, and simply went on with a long winding tale of how I came to be in Gensokyo in the first place, and everything that happened to me since then. It'd been a while since I'd recounted on my journeys, and I had considerably more to talk about now since the last time. It was hard to believe that so much had happened to me since a week after my arrival.

It was probably even harder to believe how normal it felt letting the words roll out of my mouth. I sure had adapted to the rules and inhabitants of Gensokyo quickly! Despite how much I had believed everything to be too farfetched for me to ever accept, I had gone ahead and done just that in a matter of days.

_What am I becoming?_

Kaguya only asked an occasional question or two during the entire story. By the end of it, she was smiling.

"That's quite a tale to tell, Kaito-san."

"Tell me about it," I agreed. "All this in a week, and I take it like it's the status quo."

"I admit, I'm most interested on how you obtained your abilities. Humans outside the border are unable to use magic in the present day, so what makes you so special?"

"I have no idea. All I can suspect is that it has something to do with Yukari bringing me here."

"That would obviously be the case here…."

Then she looked at me rather quizzically. "Hm… Yes, I see…."

"See what?"

"I think I know what your abilities are."

"What?"

Seriously? How could she tell? Did she manage to get it just by listening to my story?

"But that's not for me to say~" Kaguya said playfully. "It would be better for you to find out on your own!"

Where was the point in that? Couldn't she just tell me right off the bat?

That wasn't for me to ask, though, so I just sighed and nodded my head.

"Well then," Kaguya sighed. "Since you are already here, and we have some time to spend…."

She reached into one of her sleeves and drew out a small object.

My mind processed out an _Oh crap_ when I realized it was a card.

"Would you like to participate in a duel with me?"

I just woke up from a long sleep after being slashed open and poisoned in the same day, and she wants to duel me? Are you kidding me?

"Don't worry, Kaito-san, I'll go easy on you. After all, it's not like I'm going to go all out against a patient still undergoing recovery."

I refrained from sighing in relief out loud. Well, at least she had enough sense to say that. I mean, anyone who could be the mistress of someone like Eirin should be pretty powerful.

Geez, how many more fights – accidental or otherwise – would I get myself into?

"Well, I guess so. I only have two cards though."

"That's fine."

I readied myself for the fight.

Then something prodded at the side of my brain. Hadn't Patchouli said something else besides spell cards and win-lose conditions? It was sort of mentioned in passing at the end of a sentence. Something about being able to turn down a duel?

Wait a second….

Damnit! I could have just refused the duel!

Oh that was just fantastic. Why did my memory have to fail on me just before accepting?

Well, it was sort of too late now. I couldn't exactly run after accepting the duel, so there wasn't any point in trying.

Thankfully, neither of us named any actual conditions, so it wasn't like there would be consequences.

"So, shall we begin?" Kaguya asked.

I nodded.

"Then let us duel."

She held out one hand, and something materialized in it. It looked like some kind of tree branch with five different-colored gemstones attached to the tips of several twigs. What the heck was that?

In a second, all five gems began to glow with power. With a single sweep of her hand, a line of rainbow bullets materialized, and began hurtling towards me.

"Whoa!" I yelped as I dodged away. It was considerably more acrobatic of a dodge than normal, as I pulled off a midair flip while doing so. It left me a little dizzy.

Gee, I really was getting better at flying, wasn't I?

A couple more waves came my way, and I dodged those too. Mostly. Two bullets landed hits, both on my right arm, exploding into little rainbow flashes of light.

I didn't really mind them that much though (even though they did hurt). I was more concerned with the method she was firing out the bullets in the first place. That branch certainly wasn't from any kind of natural tree. So what was it?

And why did it look so familiar?

After one more wave, I decided it was time for a counterattack. With both my hands, I produced two volleys of water bullets aimed directly at her.

Kaguya smirked, and held out her other hand. In her hand materialized a second object, which looked like some kind of red cape or robe. She wrapped it around herself just a moment before the bullets reached her.

The robe caught on fire.

The water never even splashed against it, vanishing into steam before it hit.

_What the…._

Now I was _sure_ I recognized this from somewhere.

"Is that really the best you're going to do?" Kaguya teased, whipping off the robe so it hung over one shoulder.

"Well, no…" I said sheepishly. Then I decided to pose the question. "But that robe… where did you get it from?"

"Oh, this little thing?" She ran her hands over the cloth, which seemed to shimmer in the infinite glow of the stars. "I obtained it from a fire rat in China centuries ago."

My eyes narrowed. "A fire rat's robe?"

"That's correct."

"Wait a moment!" My eyes went wide now. Was she being serious? "Then that branch… that's a jeweled branch from a tree atop Mount Hourai?"

Kaguya nodded in affirmative.

That confirmed something. The robe of a fire rat, and a jeweled tree branch from Mount Hourai… didn't this come from some kind of old folk tale? There were supposed to be a total of five items, with some kind of requests surrounding each one. What was the name of that story again?

I gasped.

"Are you… are you the 'Kaguya-hime' from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter?"

A smile. And another nod. "I see you know the story. Yes, I am the same Kaguya of that old story. The only real differences are that I was not found at the bottom of a bamboo shoot in a golden egg, and I chose to stay instead of leaving. You humans sure have a tendency to mix up the truths concerning 'folk tales' like mine."

Well, us humans screwing up truths like that is fine and all. I mean, we are only human. But… holy crap, she's the same princess from that story?

That would mean that if she had two of the items from the five Impossible Requests… could she have all five?

As if to confirm my suspicion, three new objects came into existence around her. They were the exactly the same as they were described in the legend: the stone begging bowl of the Buddha, a swallow's purple cowrie shell, and a jewel that must have come from the neck of a dragon.

This was _not_ going to be easy.

Kaguya looked at me with intense eyes. "So you know of the old story of the bamboo cutter, and you know of the five Impossible Requests that I impose upon those who rise to my challenge. My five impossible requests that defeated so many humans in the past… How many can you fulfill?"

She caught hold of the dragon jewel. This began to glow with power as well, and when she held it up, a spray of laser shots came shooting out.

"Yah!" I dodged my way through, barely making it without getting struck through. One laser grazed just past my leg, leaving a tingling feeling where it passed.

Just great, now how was I supposed to get close?

A short barrage consisting of three waves of bullets and lasers came my way. With great effort, I managed to get by with minimal damage. And by minimal damage, I meant managing to graze by several lasers and only getting hit in the leg by one bullet.

I sent out another water bullet volley. Again, it did no good; Kaguya just brought her robe back around and let the water dissolve into nothingness.

It took me a split second to realize she wasn't shooting at me at this second. I charged forward.

She looked surprised, and pulled out the jeweled branch, firing out a quick wall of bullets. I got hit by about five bullets, being too close to dodge them now. I shook it off the best I could.

If the initial charge had knocked Kaguya off guard, then my sudden bout of shaking off the pain stunned her. The opportunity was as good as it would ever be.

I swept by her, grabbed the robe by the neck fur, and swiped it off her shoulders.

"That's one request fulfilled!" I cheered as I pulled the brakes and threw the robe around my own shoulders. It was a little short, since it was probably tailor-made for Kaguya, but it would do for now. It _was_ a little cold hanging out in space after all.

I realized something about the robe too; it wasn't really made out of fur. The only parts that were actually fur were the neck part that I had grabbed, and the lining around the bottom. The main red was some other kind of material that felt more rough and leathery. What was it? Scales?

So the fire rat of China was supposed to be a salamander?

That wasn't really my concern, though. I just needed to get out of this duel in one piece. My body wasn't in very good condition right now. Even those few shots I had been hit with were taking their tolls already. A few more, and I was a goner.

Stripped of her fiery defense, I let loose another water shot. Kaguya hadn't recovered from her surprise, and received a face full of magical water bullets.

_That's it!_ I seized my chance, dashing in for a physical confrontation.

I made the mistake of gauging my first strike wrong. When my palm lashed out to attack, it instead ran into something that may as well have been made of solid steel. Flesh hit metal with a resounding _CUNG!_

"Ouch!" I shouted, backing up a good distance and wringing out my hand. What the hell was that?

Once I got over the sudden shock of pain, I looked back, and realized exactly what had happened; Kaguya had dropped the branch and brought up the stone bowl of Buddha in her defense.

"Ow…" I breathed. That bowl was a lot more solid than it looked! Was this the true power of the Buddha's unbreakable bowl?

"That certainly was a close call," Kaguya sighed. She lowered the stone bowl and brandished her branch. "Don't you know it's rude to steal from a princess?"

"Eh, I'm not really _stealing._ I'm going to give it back later."

She chuckled. "At least you're decent enough to be willing to give back the things you borrow."

"Huh? What do you mean by that?"

"You're familiar with the name 'Marisa Kirisame' are you not?"

Oh. That was pretty much self-explanatory.

"That witch sometimes comes to Eientei in attempts to steal my moon treasures. Or rather, to use the witch's term for it, 'borrow until she dies'. Thankfully, Eirin and Reisen are more than able to fight her off if she does try."

Moon treasures… she had souvenirs from when she was on the moon?

That didn't really matter at the moment, though. Maybe I could ask her about them later.

"But now is not the time to be concerned about matters like those," Kaguya confirmed. She released her bowl and picked up the cowrie shell. "I believe we still have a duel to finish."

She closed her eyes.

This time, the cowrie shell was not the glowing object. Instead, an aura of white energy enveloped Kaguya. The aura channeled itself into the hand with the dragon jewel. She thrust the gem skyward, and the aura exploded, pouring laser shots out in every direction at once.

"Yah!" I cried as the lasers poured out. These ones weren't just bursts of light; they were straight up beams. I almost didn't dodge through the array in time. As it was, one very nearly ran through my left arm, and another one just grazed by my right hip.

So the cowrie shell acted as a power amplifier?

Once the beams cleared up, I had to rub my eyes to readjust to the sudden lack of light.

I blinked a couple times when I looked back at Kaguya.

And rubbed my eyes again.

Was I seeing things?

The aura wasn't gone. It was still there… sort of. Or rather, just traces of it. A single stream of white – mixed in with what looked like a little bit of pink – was still coming from the hand that held the dragon jewel, and even as I watched, it was fading away. Tiny little droplets of pink-white aura were still dropping off her body.

What the hell…?

"You're losing focus, Kaito-san!" Kaguya reached into one of her long sleeves and drew out a card. "_離れて竜の祝福の涙、その方法でそれらの！__Divine Treasure: Brilliant Dragon Bullet!"_

The dragon jewel split in two. The card became convoluted, expanding and morphing. Eventually, it reached the size of a large man, and adapted the shape of a dragon's head. The jewel halves socketed themselves into the slots where the dragon's eyes would be. A dragon's roar bellowed out into what should have been empty space.

And the entire projectile shot forward at once.

_Crap!_

It came in too fast, and it was too large.

I braced myself for impact.

It's open maw came down upon me.

_FSHOOM!_

"AAAAGH!"

Everything burned. It was like being run through a screen of lightning. A million volts of electricity had been shot through me in a split second.

I curled up in pain. My body felt jittery; the electrical storm I'd just experienced was hammering me with a stream of aftershocks. My mind could barely work out a conscious thought.

_D-d-damn…._

"This is the end, Kaito-san!"

Kaguya was coming right at me. Her dragon jewel had returned to her hand, ready for a close-range blast.

_Ngh! I-I can't… No!_

My hand shakily reached into my pocket. The joints of my fingers were quivering so much that I almost didn't manage to pull out a card. I didn't care which one it was; I just knew – through my nearly-unresponsive thoughts – that I needed one right at that moment.

The card melted, seeping into my hand. The string of words I shouted was crystal clear, guided by the power of magic.

"_O Dea Lunar ablue re sua vincula! Break Sign: Flood of Insanity!"_

My eyes shut for a second. And they snapped back open.

The terror in Kaguya's eyes reflected a bright red flash.

A moment passed in absolute silence.

Then Kaguya completely fell apart.

"W-wha… what happened to the universe?" she asked, frightened.

Whether or not I would have been able to articulate a proper response, I wouldn't have said anything anyways. The magic was gone now, and while I wasn't shaking nearly as much as I was before, it was still hard for me to move.

And either way, I had no clue what the heck this spell card did. I was going to find out in a little bit.

"Where… where am I? Where did you send me, Kaito-san!"

I just sat there, still in pain, and now confused. What was she talking about?

Wait a second… that red flash of light… it was just like the one that Reisen had dealt me some time ago.

Had I catapulted Kaguya into some sort of twisted reality her mind saw as real?

Suddenly, she screamed. "S-stop it! Where is all this water coming from?"

Now I understood. She had been mentally locked inside some kind of room that was filling up with water. She had been driven to the brink of insanity, and believed that the flood inside her mind was really going to drown her.

And that terrified me too. What kind of a spell card was this? It felt rather sadistic to be torturing her like this.

"Agh! No!" Suddenly, her aura began charging again, and focused into the hand with the dragon jewel. She thrust it downward, as if into what she thought was a pool of water, and unleashed the barrage.

"Gyagh!" I hadn't been expecting the sudden attack, and had no time to position myself correctly. One laser ran right through my left shoulder, with one more in my right arm, and two in my legs. And they burned like hell, stacking onto the massive shock I had received from the dragon head.

Crap! She'd become even more dangerous this way. Thinking she was clearing away the illusionary water, Kaguya was beginning to fire out indiscriminate shots in a desperate attempt to break out of the illusion.

I had to shut her down quick, or I was screwed. I wouldn't be able to take another barrage like that.

I rushed forward, panicked, trying to make it in time before she got off another round of beams.

Her aura was just focusing into her hand when I reached her and dealt a kick across the face.

Something cracked and broke. It wasn't a bone or anything; the sound was more temporal than physical. I had snapped Kaguya out of the illusion.

If I let her regain composure, then I was going to be assaulted by further barrages, so I didn't stop there. My other leg swung around, driving into her stomach. The princess gasped and choked as I knocked out her breath.

Then a palm to the chin. I was greeted by a blue explosion of energy. She was knocked upwards.

I gave chase, gathered as much power as I could, and punched her in the chest.

FWOOSH!

I didn't make direct contact. Instead, a geyser of golden-yellow energy was bursting from my fist. The force of the blow kept my fist from getting a direct hit.

_What the hell?_

This was the exact same thing that Utsuho was able to do. Wasn't this a blade of nuclear energy or something?

I withdrew my fist and inspected the pyramid-shaped blade. It looked like it was at least the length of my lower arm, essentially nearly doubling the length of my arm with a lethal weapon.

_Whoa…._ Despite the fact I was kind of freaked out by the sudden gain of yet another new ability, I couldn't help but think this was a little cool.

Then I looked back to Kaguya.

What the….

The blade of energy melted away.

OH SHIT!

"Kaguya-hime!"

I flew in and caught her immobile body just before whatever gravity there was in the empty space of the universe began to take hold of her. She hung limp in my arms, lifeless eyes staring off into the stars.

With a single gaping hole in her chest. Exactly where I had punched her.

Right where her heart should have been.

HOLY SHIT, I'D KILLED HER!

There was no blood, except for some trickling out the corner of her mouth. Instant cauterization.

It didn't matter.

I screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

Horror at my deed seized hold of my body. I very nearly dropped Kaguya.

"No!" I shouted to the heavens, tears latching onto the edges of my eyes. I scanned around frantically, searching for the door. "E-Eirin-sama! Reisen-san! Anyone, help!"

I caught site of a small rectangle a long distance off. I immediately flew for it.

Oh my god… what had I just done? How was I going to explain this to them? What had happened to the non-lethality rule of spell card duels?

Damnit! I'd killed Kaguya!

Suddenly, over my sobs of guilt, a soft voice broke through.

"_神秘的な石が中核に熱く燃える__..."_

I looked down, incredulous. Kaguya's eyes were glittering, her hand against my chest, with red energy pouring out.

"_New Impossible Request: Red Stone of Aja!"_

A sensation that felt like an explosion was tearing through me.

"GYAAAAAAAH!"

* * *

Light. A really bright white light.

Was I dead?

I was squinting, and I blinked a couple times. A single shadow stretching off to the right was now in view.

"Ah, you're awake now, Kaito-san."

"He's awake?"

A second shadow came into view on my left.

"Kaito-kun? Can you hear me?"

Huh?

I tried moving my arms and legs. Though it was painful, they responded slightly. A sharp shock of pain punched into my chest.

"Ouch…" I uttered. It was all I could muster.

"Kaito-kun!"

The light was gone. My vision began to readjust and general feeling returned to my limbs, along with a fresh wave of needles stabbing into me. I caught sight of a sheet of blue over concerned eyes.

"Ngh…" I groaned. So maybe I wasn't dead? I wouldn't be hurting so much if I was dead, would I?

As it was, I could barely move. Pain racked my body, centering around my chest.

What had happened?

"My apologies, Kaito-kun," another voice came. "I hadn't quite expected my spell card to hurt you so much!"

My mind managed to recognize it. It was Kaguya.

"Did you forget that I had only just finished suturing his chest wound three nights ago, Kaguya-hime?" That was Eirin.

"Ehehe, sorry. I _did _forget about that, didn't I?"

That sounded kind of odd. Kaguya had been so much more formal back in the other room.

"Honestly, to use the _Red Stone of Aja_…" Eirin sighed. "Regardless, he seems mostly fine now, though I don't know how long it's going to take for his new burn to heal, especially having opened up a previous wound like that."

"Do you think you could give an estimate?" That was Nitori.

"Hm… given his usual rate of recovery doesn't falter… I'd say about two days. But that's mostly just to get the pain to go away. It will still take some time for his body to properly recover from the damage. Perhaps four to five days for full recovery. A week maximum."

Five days, huh? I supposed that was acceptable.

"That's great!" The face in the center of my vision – which had cleared up a little more – turned back to face me with bright eyes. A hand rested on my own. "You heard that, right? You'll be better in four days."

I was still groggy, but I managed a nod, and a very quiet "Yeah…."

Suddenly, a stab of pain ripped into my chest. "Argh!" I gasped. I realized I wasn't going to stay conscious much longer.

"Kaito-kun!"

I leveled out the breathing as much as I could through my discomfort. The blue eyes that had been bright a second ago were now filled with worry.

Nitori's eyes prompted me to do something. I pulled out a tiny smile. My hand shakily moved to clasp her hand gently. No sooner did I do that, when my body began losing feeling in itself. I breathed out a few more words.

"Don't… worry… I'll be fine…."

My hand slipped from hers, and I drifted into fitful rest.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

* A dragon's blessing tears apart those in its way!

** Oh, Lunar Goddess, wash away their ties to reality!

*** A mysterious stone burns hotter at its core….

For those of you who are slightly confused about my mass freak out at the end of the fight (I'm semi-sure that at least a couple of you are), remember that due to memory loss, I'm not supposed to know that Kaguya is immortal. If I had known otherwise, then... well, yeah, none of that above would have happened.

Writing out this chapter was a _beast_. No less than 100% of my heart, soul, and whatever (meager) skill I had was used to create this. And I am more than satisfied. I feel like I've actually managed to improve in some respects, particularly in writing out a fight scene.

Naturally, of course, I still have a long ways to go, so while this is good, I hope I don't wind up stopping here.

So I'm going to put the request here: I want a lot of critique. While I do think this is the best I've written so far, I want to know what everyone else thinks. What I'm doing well, what I'm doing not-so-well, what needs improvement, and so on. Any input will be well-appreciated.

The next chapter will be devoted to everyone's favorite Gensokyo troll, Yukari Yakumo. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~

Also, before I leave, I'd like to extend a hand of gratitude out to some people, particularly some of the people who gave reviews (to those who have given reviews and don't have their names listed, I apologize).

SomeBITGamer: You gave a single review at the very beginning, which, I have to say, was probably a little unnecessary. But that's fine, since I keep in contact with you over AIM all the time anyways. Whenever I post up something, you're usually ready with immediate feedback in real time, and for that, I thank you.

VirusChris: Your initial support from the second chapter was a great boost in my confidence. Honestly, I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that someone was reading my work at such an early stage, and since then, you've been an ardent supporter of this story, lending strength in the form of positive reviews, and for that, I thank you.

Magnificent Sasquatch: My good man, you have a brilliant mind for comedy and over-the-top commentaries, and it shows. Reading your reviews is never quite the same time after time, considering how many creative ways you've managed to dismiss yourself from my presence in every review. But that just makes for a more interesting read. Still, the bottom line is, your support is very much a great help, and for that, I thank you.

(I'm starting to notice a strange pattern, since the last few words of all the above feel like they were pulled off of Tosh.0)

bluewolf963: You caught on somewhere around the middle (on which chapter, i can't seem to remember), and since then have been supplying positive reviews for every chapter. Though I may sound a little mean, your late-coming is still appreciated just like the rest, and for that, I thank you.

Inamaru: I haven't seen you reviewing as of late, so I'm rather curious about your status (though truthfully, if I had been able to find time to read your stories and keep up with them, I wouldn't be worrying about something like that). Still, you did say that you wouldn't give reviews _all_ the time, so I suppose that I shouldn't have to worry. But all the same, your lengthy review from some time ago was definitely one of the best reviews I had ever gotten. As I once said before, your review was a great boost to someone whose confidence is supposedly the gutter, and for that, I thank you.

I suppose that'll be all for this time. Farewell to all~


	25. Chapter 25: Past To The Present

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 25: Past To The Present**

The room was dark when I came to.

Actually, no, not dark. I just came to with my eyes closed.

I tried opening them. Little by little, my eyelids creaked open. They met darkness. What little light there was came in from a mostly-closed curtain on the other side of the room, pouring in a little bit of moonlight.

Okay, so maybe it _was_ dark in the room.

A low groan escaped me as I raised a shaky hand to rub my eyes. It helped a little bit, allowing me to adjust a little more to the darkness.

How long had I been asleep? At least several hours. It had only been sometime around the afternoon when I had last woken up after I had been beaten by Kaguya and her spell card.

With as much strength as I could muster, I tried to push myself up.

A shock of pain lanced through my chest.

"Gah!" My arms lost their strength, and I hit the bed again. Guess I wasn't quite ready to even get out of bed yet. Granted, Eirin had said my chest wound had reopened, so it made sense.

Man, that spell card had been pretty powerful. What was it called again? The _Red Stone of Aja_? She had called it a new impossible request, so maybe she built up a small collection of other treasures or something while she was here? Possibly….

That made me wonder what other impossible requests she may have been able to come up with in these past centuries. There probably wasn't a lot around to make a request out of, so not that many, perhaps. Regardless, it still made me curious.

"Nnh…."

Huh?

I tilted my head left.

Nitori was sitting there, head on the bed, fast asleep.

Whoa. I hadn't even noticed her there. Had she been staying by my bedside this whole time?

"Mmh… days…."

Was he talking in her sleep?

"Need… get to… mountain…."

Oh, she was dreaming about having to get to the Youkai Mountain. Made sense, considering how long it had been since she was supposed to bring that generator up to the mountain. And it made me feel guilty again, since it still felt like all of this had been my fault.

A tiny smile reached my lips. At least this time, she was sleeping peacefully. My left hand came up and brushed away a small part of her hair.

Suddenly, a light fell across my face. "Now isn't that sweet."

"Gyah!"

My hand froze. I let my head reset so it was looking up once more.

"Y-Yukari-sama."

"Hello there, Kaito-san." She was sitting on her boundary platform again, parasol over her shoulder. There was a little lantern hanging out on one of the sides of the mini-portal.

I noticed something different about her too. It was more or less the same with Kaguya; a strange aura was coming off of Yukari now. Tiny droplets of a purple-violet color were dropping off her person.

I sighed quietly. Man, she was always there when I least expected it. "Geez, Yukari-sama, you scared me. Why are you here?"

"I'm here to check up on you."

"What?" That sounded rather odd. And maybe even a little creepy.

She chuckled. "Judging by the look on your face, that didn't sound quite right, hm?"

"Uh, yeah…."

"Well, don't take it the wrong way. I'm simply concerned for your welfare. You were in quite a terrible state when I came by a few days ago."

"You came by to see me?"

"Not quite. More like, I came by to help out. Eirin was having some trouble trying to suture your wound, so I helped keep it closed."

"How the heck did you do that?"

"Your wound was like a breached gap in your body, so I treated it as such."

I wasn't quite sure how that worked. I mean, did the power to manipulate boundaries really stretch that far? But then….

"Wait a second. If you could help keep my wound closed with your abilities, then why didn't you just completely close it yourself?"

She pulled out a small folding fan from the folds of her dress, opened it, and began fanning herself. "Now that's stretching it a bit far. Why would I want to do that?"

"Uh… so I can heal a little faster?"

"Well, I already messed with a few boundaries to help you recover faster naturally. I did all that for you before you even came to Gensokyo in the first place. Why would I need to personally close up the wound?"

That just sounded a little lazy. But I guessed that this explained why I was able to recover so quickly after being slashed open then poisoned, and why I was able to take so much punishment in the first place. I sighed. "Never mind."

"You still seem disappointed," she pointed out.

"No, it's nothing," I assured her. It wasn't all that close to nothing, but I wasn't exactly going to bring up how lazy she sounded just now.

"Well then," she said in a strangely conclusive manner. "Since that seems to be over with, I'd like to hear your stories."

"Huh?"

"You know, about your journeys so far in Gensokyo. I _have_ been keeping an eye on you from time to time, but I want to hear everything from you."

"Uh… okay…."

And my tale began anew. It felt rather contrived, having to tell more or less the same story over and over again. But I supposed that was what happened to people who were foreign to a place like this.

Besides, at least I didn't need to explain my arrival.

And while I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be like that, I felt like Yukari had let something slip; she said she had been keeping an eye on me on occasion. Did that mean that she sometimes helped me out whenever I was in a serious situation, aside from the times she had out and out given me assistance? If that was true, then that blue glow that had enveloped my arms back down in Hell when I was blocking those fireballs may have been her doing. But I decided not to ask that.

"Fascinating…" Yukari cooed. "You're evolving much faster than I expected!"

"Huh?"

"Well, I suppose now is the time that I start explaining things to you, hm?"

Seriously? She was actually asking me that? Well, at least it saved me the need to ask her myself. "Sure, that'd be fine."

"Very well, then. But I warn you, I'm not going to explain everything. I know how much your curiosity is craving for an explanation, but now is not the time to reveal everything."

That was a bit disappointing. But that was fine; at least some of my questions would be answered one way or another. I nodded.

"Okay. First, I think I'm going to start with a little history lesson, because if I don't, then some things may not make sense for you.…

"I'm sure you're not aware of it, considering the usual way of humans trying to latch a logical explanation on that which isn't, but humans of the past were not as mundane as they are now. The entire human race in general used to be capable of certain magical abilities, much like the youkai of both past and present. You see, those humans needed these abilities to survive. Now, I'm sure you're wondering how I know this, and I would think that it's obvious how; no border or boundary is not under my control, and the boundaries of space and time are no different. I've taken trips into the past before on my own leisure time, though I am careful to keep from altering past events. I may be able to manipulate boundaries, but that doesn't mean I can stop the Butterfly Effect from occurring if I mess anything up.

"Now, humans gained use of their abilities when they adapted to their own surroundings, much like how an animal evolves to suit a certain time period as its species lives on. Ancient humans lived in many different parts of the world, and because they lived in different places, they developed different kinds of abilities. As I studied them, I noticed that it was primarily split into the four cardinal directions."

I realized here that this was going to take quite a while. Too bad I couldn't even try to get comfortable, given my current state. A small part of me wanted to fall asleep, but I knew the explanation was important, so I tried to stay awake.

"If you need any help trying to stay awake, I can help you," Yukari offered.

"No thank you," I refused. "Sorry. Please, continue."

"Very well then. Now where was I… Ah, yes.

"The west was a generally prosperous land, but beginnings were harsh, as crops sometimes had trouble growing. For this reason, the humans of the west developed the ability to wield true magic; that is to say, spell-weaving and such as that. They grasped the power first for the purpose of helping their crops grow, but eventually developed it to the point where it could be used extensively for the purpose of war, and battle, which is why stories in the present day of the outside world often depict it as such.

"Those to the north faced harsh conditions, battling against nature itself as it sought to crush them under endless amounts of snow. To keep themselves from being overrun by the onslaught of nature, they developed immense physical prowess, taming their bodies to withstand the biting cold and gain strength beyond normal limits. Not only did it offer them protection against the cold, but it gave them the strength to survive by fighting other animals that were also able to brave the same destructive conditions.

"To the south lay dense forests and unrelenting sun. Humans here lived as hunter-gatherers, killing for food when finding plants proved inefficient. However, the forest was a perilous place, hiding dangerous creatures behind every other tree, concealing deadly insects under every leaf. The humans here realized they could not fight what they could not see, so instead of fighting it, they decided to join it. They gained the ability to shape-shift into animals, to become that which threatened them. Though a person had to choose wisely, as they could only pick a single animal from which they could turn into and out of at will.

"Finally, there was the east. They had to deal with the presence of us youkai. Well, at first, there were no conflicts, but eventually, we youkai developed a taste for human flesh. Deception followed deception, as we were often able to blend into the human population, and have our meals that way; it's why so many youkai now look human. So in order to find a way to expose us for the youkai we were, and have a way to combat us, they developed the ability to harness spirit energy – that is to say, ki energy, like what the gatekeeper of the Scarlet Devil Mansion uses. With it, they could focus mentally and see us spiritually and know we were different, and at the same time have a way to fight us."

She closed the fan and pointed it at me. "It's this world that you came from that has granted you that ability."

"Eh?" I was from the east? Would that explain why I was able to see the auras of both Yukari and Kaguya? Who else would I be able to see in that way?

"However," Yukari continued. "With the ushering in of new technology and such, humans grew to lose these powers, turning their backs on old beliefs and old methods, and embracing a new age. They no longer needed their powers to survive, as technology would provide them all they needed, so why keep them?"

"What? Then how am I able to use my power? If I was only born in the recent era, then shouldn't I be unable to do so?"

"Normally, yes. But I tampered with a few temporal boundaries concerning you, and unlocked that part of your original subconscious. With that, I reawakened your ability to use ki. Humans did not _lose_ their abilities, per se. They simply lay dormant within every person born from that line."

I supposed that that made sense. But that left one part unanswered.

"But that's not my only ability, is it? The best I can really do with ki manipulation is being able to sense the auras of those around me. What about my other power? All this time, I've just been emulating the abilities of other people. Why is that?"

"Ah, yes, I was getting to that. See, most everyone had natural abilities, but some were different. On a rare occasion, there would be someone born with no power, or they would gain an even greater one. Or perhaps not greater, just different. These people would gain abilities based on their person. Who they are, and what they're like. Their power would stem from that instead of what normally grants one with power, or if they were lucky, they would have both."

I gasped. "A person with power… that comes from their personality?"

"Exactly."

"Then…." No way. Was I supposed to be one of those kinds of people? A person that had both natural ability _and_ an abnormal one?

"Now, now, don't get cocky," Yukari mused. "You're actually not that special. You were only born with a natural ability, though your grasp on it only extends so far as being able to sense aura. Admittedly, the extent at which you can sense it is quite high, but aside from that, you have little natural ability. So, again, I tampered with a few boundaries, and granted you the special power you have now. Think of it as sort of a gift from me to you."

I sighed, a little crestfallen. That pretty much shot down almost every personal notion of being just a little special. But then again, I was a human in Gensokyo with magical ability, so I supposed that still had to be pretty uncommon, since the only humans around here that seemed to be able to use magic were Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya. Still, it sounded rather stupid to pick someone like me when I had a power that seemed so weak, and I made it clear.

"But why did you choose me? Why not someone else with a more competent ability?"

"That's certainly true," Yukari agreed, chuckling. "I could have tried to bring in someone that you would believe to be more competent. But you see, you were a person I would have had little trouble with. Also, your own personality not only grants you an ability that I find rather special in its own right, but it goes in tandem with your aura sensing. It would have been difficult to find someone else that had the same combination as you."

I wasn't sure whether or not I should believe her. She had given me a somewhat backhanded compliment, so there could have been some room for believing her. But….

"Wait a second. What did you mean when you said I was the one you would have had 'little trouble with'?"

"Well, you were a rather avid book reader during your time in the outside world. You read a lot of high fantasy, so I knew that you would be one who could adapt to the strangeness of Gensokyo the easiest."

That made sense, especially considering how I had reacted so calmly to the fact that Eirin was able to fly, and Yukari could manipulate boundaries my first few minutes here (or rather, at least I hadn't completely flipped out). And I had practically accepted most of Gensokyo as the status quo within a short amount of time.

"I suppose that does it for explanations for the day," Yukari stated. "You still need rest, so I'll leave you alone for now."

"Eh? Uh, okay then." I still had a few questions left, but if she wasn't going to answer them now then I wasn't exactly in a position to argue with that.

"Oh, and a little something before I go." She waved a hand.

"Gah!" I exclaimed. The pain in my chest suddenly doubled in strength.

Then, in a couple seconds, it faded away just as fast, reducing to nothing more than a dull throb. I sat up, and I felt fine. What?

"I sealed up the wound for you," Yukari informed. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Huh? Er… yeah, I guess. Thanks, Yukari-sama."

"Of course. Farewell~"

And with that, the light disappeared, and Yukari was gone.

Geez, I was never going to be able to figure her out. One minute, she sounds far too lazy to even want to close my wound in the first place, and the next minute she does exactly that. While I _was_ thankful, it left an odd feeling.

"Nnh…."

Whoa! I almost forgot Nitori was here the whole time.

When I looked over, she seemed to be stirring for good this time. A single eye opened up a sliver.

"Uh… Kaito-kun? You're awake."

"Ah. Hey there, Nitori-chan. I woke up a little while ago."

"Oh…." She groaned a little, rubbing one eye. "How long have I been asleep?"

"I'm not sure. When I woke up, you were already fast asleep. I didn't really want to wake you up, so I just left you there."

"Ah…."

"How long have I been asleep anyways?"

"Um… at least a day."

A full day? At this rate, I was going to spend more time asleep than awake.

"So how are you feeling now?"

"Eh? Well, I do feel better."

"Ah, that's great!" Nitori smiled brightly at me. "So that's only three more days until you should feel all better!"

I gave back a knowing smile. "Something tells me it'll take less time than that."

"Huh? What makes you say that?"

"I had a little help."

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

For all future reference, I cannot (or maybe, should not) claim _any_ part of that "history lesson" to be true. Which should be pretty obvious, actually. Honestly, I actually only thought of the idea when I remembered that there were lots of instances of consistencies between multiple mythologies (another obvious point to many cultures), and that myths were created in the first place in much the same way that Yukari explains it here. The four-way split I threw in was what I saw to be the most logical in terms of geography, which was why it was laid out as such, but I can't say for sure that anything is true about what is here except, perhaps, for the west and east. Beyond that, I really have no idea, so I'm mostly just shooting a crapton of blanks here. If anyone feels the need to ding me for that, then please do so, as I honestly believe that screwing up something like general cultural myths (or other) is worth punishment, and I apologize for doing so.

But anyways, yeah, a long-awaited explanation, huh? I knew I was going to use this chapter to do something about that, but I didn't want to make it some kind of long, drawn-out lecture about something that can be easily summarized in no more than a few sentences (gee, how hypocritical). So I used a lot of this chapter to, at least marginally, _try_ and grind out a little interest. I feel like it fell flat on its face, but I'll leave that to whoever is reading this to decide whether or not it was interesting.

Finally leaving Eientei 'the following morning'. Hope you enjoyed this chapter (though I'm pretty sure you probably saw it as all a drag).


	26. Chapter 26: History In, Journey Out

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 26: History In, Journey Out**

"Honestly, you really are the strangest human I've ever met, next to Reimu-san."

"Ehehe, really? I knew I was strange, but that's kind of… a strange comparison."

"But to heal from a wound that quickly? You truly are something else."

"Well, if you say so…."

It was early morning now. I was in front of a mirror, looking back at the reflections of both myself and Eirin. Aside from the two of us, I could see a faint aura around Eirin now, which was tinted a deep shade of gray.

The moment I had told her that my wound was closed, she had refused to believe me. Then I let her check. To say she was surprised would have been an understatement. She almost started freaking out a little.

After a few moments, however, she managed to calm down.

I chose to keep the fact Yukari had helped me to myself. Partially because I didn't really want inquiries on what she was doing seeing me in the middle of the night.

Still, Yukari hadn't really done anything about scar tissue, so now, there were two large marks on my chest; the claw slash from Mystia, and the burn from Kaguya. Where the two overlapped close to the center of my rib cage, it was white instead darkened skin; a testament to the reopened wound. All in all, it looked like three dark slash marks with a large circle in the middle, and white where the two crossed.

I knew I was going to have this for the rest of my life. Not that I was going to complain though; honestly, I thought it looked kind of cool.

Now that I was actually looking at a mirror, I got a better look at myself after all these days: tall and thin in structure, with lightly tanned skinned. I wasn't muscled, but I didn't have much body fat either. And my face was completely devoid of any pimples, which I found extremely odd. When I questioned Eirin about it, she said that I did have some blemishes when I first came in, but the medicine she had administered at that time apparently took care of it.

Gee, didn't think pimples would fall under the category of "bodily damage" but whatever.

"Are you enjoying the new look?"

I turned away from the mirror to see Kaguya.

"Ah, Kaguya no kimi." I felt a little embarrassed at her comment. Damn, she could pinpoint motives and such in moments, couldn't she?

"Don't worry. You're still but a boy, so it would only be natural to feel empowered by the gaining of such a scar."

Empowered? I wasn't so sure of that. I just thought it looked cool, that's all. Though it was also a testament to the battles I'd been up to now, so I supposed that what she said made a little sense.

She stepped a little closer, getting right up into my face. A single finger drew itself affectionately on my bare chest.

"You know, I like men with scars," she said in a rather seductive tone. "And I may not be the only one."

A loud sneeze came from behind Kaguya somewhere. I knew it was probably Nitori who had done so. I wondered why she had.

"H-huh?" I asked dumbly. Kaguya was being a little bit more… intimate than I would have liked.

She laughed, and drew away. "Oh, I'm just teasing you. My goodness, Kaito, are you really that bad at dealing with the opposite gender?"

"Er… not necessarily, but you were… getting a little… close…."

Another quick burst of laughter. "You really are hopeless."

I sighed, slipping back on the top of the robe.

"Well, now that I'm done teasing you," Kaguya said cheerfully. "Would you like to hear a story?"

"Eh? What do you mean?" This was a little sudden.

"You're interested in how I came to be in Gensokyo, aren't you?"

"Huh? Oh, well, yeah. If I remember correctly, the 'Tale of the Bamboo Cutter' took place millennia ago, and yet you're still alive. How?"

She took a chair and sat, then patted the bed we were standing next to. "Please, sit, and make yourself comfortable. It's quite a long tale, actually, leading all the way up to the present, in fact.

"Um, okay." I let myself drop onto the bed, hanging over the edge.

"Oh, I just _love_ telling stories," Kaguya said in a delighted tone. "You see, we don't get many guests here in Eientei, so I hardly come in contact with anyone. I hope you understand that this is actually rather selfish of me, asking if you'd like to hear this. But you're going to be leaving soon, so I'd like to at least share one story to entertain my guests before they leave."

Wow. She really didn't get out much, did she? Considering she was a princess, that notion held some level of sense in it anyhow, so I wasn't all that surprised.

"Ah, Nitori-san!" The princess turned to the kappa. "Would you like to hear this too? The more, the merrier."

"Huh? Oh, sure," she agreed, strolling over and seating herself next to me. Tiny drops of light blue were coming from her now, and she seemed perfectly fine after only about a day of rest, decked back out in her usual light blue clothing. "I think I heard something like this as an old folk tale from some older kappa. I'd like to hear the story straight from you!"

"Splendid!" Kaguya was obviously pleased. "Well then, I supposed I should start from the very beginning, when I was still on the Moon Capital….

"Many centuries ago, I was the princess of the Moon Capital. Yes, I was an actual royal figure of royal blood when I was on the moon. The moon was a wondrous place, filled with technology and beauty far beyond that of this earth. However, being a royal, I led a rather sheltered life. Since I was unable to go out and experience the world with the rest of the Lunarians, I grew quite bored of the life I was living. So I decided to make things a little more exciting for myself; I asked Eirin to brew me the Hourai Elixir, and I consumed it."

Nitori gasped for some reason. Whether it was out of horror or surprise, or maybe both, I couldn't tell. I just raised an eyebrow, since I had no idea what she was talking about.

"The beverage she is talking about," piped up a voice to the right. It was Eirin. "The Hourai Elixir is a legendary drink that, once imbibed, will grant the imbiber immortality."

"What?" My jaw dropped in an instant, for two reasons. The first reason was because the drink could cause immortality in the first place. The second reason was because Eirin had actually outright _brewed _it.

Kaguya giggled. "Judging by your amazed look, you can hardly believe that Eirin was able to make such a thing."

I nodded slowly. Nitori was nodding too; she had known what it was, but couldn't believe it either.

"Well, she did," Kaguya stated simply. "And she did so on my request, simply because I was a bored princess. I've looked like this," she stood and did a little twirl, "for more than thirteen centuries.

She sat back down. "This is the crime for which I was exiled. We Lunarians value purity, and my drinking of the Hourai Elixir was synonymous to drinking something dirty and poisonous. Normally, a punishment for such a crime is death, but because I drank the Hourai Elixir, I am unable to die. No matter how they tried to dispose of me – and they tried some of the most gruesome ways possible – I would always come back to life, perfectly healthy. It was true immortality; time had lost its hold on me, and I would exist at the age I am now for the rest of eternity, never aging, and undying.

"Since I was 'tainted' as such, as the Great Council of the Capital put it, they decided that I should reside amongst that which was also 'tainted' as punishment. So they sent me here, to ancient Japan. Yes, I started outside of Gensokyo, in an era of Japan that was not that different from here. And I lived there for many years, imposing my five Impossible Requests upon those who chose to be my suitors.

"Then came the time when my exile was over. Emissaries from the moon came to take me back to the capital. But I did not want to leave, and made that clear. The emissaries would not have it, and said that they would take me back by force if they had to."

"This is a point where I came in," Eirin interjected. "I was one of the emissaries that came to retrieve Kaguya no kimi. However, I did not believe I deserved to return to the Moon Capital, since I had been the one who brewed the Hourai Elixir for her in the first place, and yet I had escaped punishment. So I killed all the other emissaries and remained here on Earth, on a self-imposed exile."

My initial feeling had been right; this was a pretty amazing story. I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing, even though it sounded more than fantastical enough to be a part of Gensokyo's history.

"So, after that episode," Kaguya continued. "The two of us fled here to Gensokyo, where we were accepted and taken care of by Tewi. She's the true master of this house, and we are simply enjoying her hospitality. You probably won't see her during your time in Gensokyo, as she goes out to travel on occasion, and it's quite difficult to catch her."

Reisen had mentioned Tewi once before. She was the one allowing them to stay here in the first place? Geez, and I thought Eirin and Kaguya were strong.

"But anyways, since we've arrived here at Eientei, we went into hiding. I used my power to conceal the house, and keep it from being discovered."

"How?" Nitori asked. I was about to ask, but she beat me to it.

Kaguya smiled. "That's rather simple. I have the power to control eternity."

My eyes narrowed. That made little sense, if any at all.

"That which is eternal is under my control. Anything that does not change in the passage of time can be bent to my will. Because this is the House of Eternity, I can use my powers to hide it. I've been doing so for more than a millennium."

That long, huh? Gee, it must have gotten pretty lonely. I mean, with no one but Eirin, Tewi, and the other rabbits….

"I wasn't really that lonely, though."

"Eh?" Geez, again with the mind-reading. What was I, an open book?

"I had someone else to keep me company. Kaito-san?"

"Hm?"

"You were guided here by someone, correct? Did the person have long violet-white hair, and wings of fire?"

"Huh?" Though my memory wasn't the greatest (and I had been severely panicking at that time too), I did remember the fiery wings. I nodded. "Yeah, she did. Why?"

Kaguya giggled. "I thought so. That was Fujiwara no Mokou. She's an immortal just like I am."

"Huh? She is?"

"That's right. She's a human that's been alive for nearly as long as I have, as she became immortal in the same way; drinking the Hourai Elixir. Her ability to control fire is a testament to that immortality, as she had to develop her ability on her own."

"So you two have known each other for that long… are you two good friends or something?"

A peal of laughter came from behind Kaguya. It was Reisen. She had returned from taking care of some chores around Eientei. Her aura was a really bright red.

"That couldn't be further from the truth," she replied. "Mokou hates Kaguya no kimi with a passion."

"Then why would she guide Kaito-kun here to Eientei?" Nitori piped up.

"That's a little difficult to answer," Kaguya threw back. "You see, the relationship between Mokou and I is a rather strange one. While I do not hate Mokou, she hates me because her father was one of the many suitors who were humiliated for being unable to complete my Impossible Requests. For this reason, she had been feuding with me for the past millennium. But she can never get her revenge, as I will never die, and I cannot be rid of a pest, since she cannot be killed either. However, that does not really stop us from trying, and whenever we get the chance to, we'll fight, killing each other for no other reason than because we want to. We both know there's no point in doing so, and even Mokou has been simmering down as of late, believing her reason for feuding to be pointless."

Suddenly, Kaguya looked more than a little cheerful. "But… at the same time, we are also the only two immortals in all of Gensokyo, and the rest of the world. As time passes, all that we once knew will wither and die away, while we stay the same, never aging, and never dying for all of eternity. Personally, I actually like being alive, but I cannot say the same for Mokou. She seems to have grown tired of her long life span, and wishes for it to end, even though she knows it won't.

Wow. That was pretty heavy.

On a side note, I had to give both of them a little credit; I always thought that living forever would drive you insane, but that hadn't happened to either of them. Mokou didn't seem very talkative, but I couldn't call that being insane, and Kaguya was probably the most refined person in all of Gensokyo. And no doubt, being resurrected after death was no painless task. I mean, you basically just _died_ and came back to life. I wondered how they were able to stand it for so many years.

"I suppose that's the end of that," Kaguya concluded. "Thank you both for listening. It's good to be able to tell a story like that, and we haven't had a visitor in a while."

She rose from her seat and began to leave. "I wish you both safe travels. And keep an eye out for Tewi, please. She's a bit mischievous, but if you find her, you'll be able to find your way out of the bamboo forest without fail."

And with that, she left.

Reisen sighed with exasperation. "A _bit_ mischievous?" she cried out sarcastically. "Don't believe that; Tewi is one hell of a prankster."

She gestured with a hand. "Come on, you two. I'll lead you out of Eientei."

* * *

"Why didn't you tell them about Yukari-sama?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Yukari-sama came to visit you last night, didn't she?"

"Uh…."

Nitori and I were out of Eientei now. Reisen and Eirin had both given us hearty goodbyes, wishing us luck in finding Tewi (Eirin warned me not to get reckless again, since while she had enjoyed the challenge of fixing us up, she wouldn't be keen on having to do it again). When we were finally away from the House of Eternity, Nitori suddenly sprung that question on me. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to answer truthfully or not, but considering how she sounded like she knew the truth anyhow, I didn't bother lying.

"Yeah, she did. I didn't say anything about it because I didn't want any questions being fired at me about why she came by in the first place. But I'm curious; how did you know that in the first place? I thought you were asleep at that time."

"Well, uh…." Nitori scratched her head in embarrassment. "I was sort of feigning sleep. When a lantern light suddenly came in the room, I awoke, but when I realized it was Yukari-sama, and that you were awake, I decided to keep quiet."

"So… you were eavesdropping on us?" I threw out, deadpanned.

"Y-yes… I-I'm sorry, I-"

"No, no, it's fine," I assured her. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure you were just curious about what we were talking about. And besides, it's not like we talked about anything that wasn't intended for others to hear."

"O-oh… well, okay then."

"Alright," I let out, stretching. The two of us had been bedridden for practically four or five days now, so it felt good to be back outside. "So, we're supposed to be looking for this Tewi girl, right? I'm guessing she's going to be a bunny girl just like Reisen?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"No reason. Just voicing my thoughts out lo-gyagh!"

_Poom!_

"Ah! Kaito-kun, are you okay?"

"Yeah… I'm fine…."

I sat up as well as I could in the round hole I had just fallen into. Someone had set up a random pitfall trap right out here in the middle of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. It had been a perfect trap, as perhaps not even the most skilled of trackers would have been able to detect something like this. At least, that was what I thought. When I looked around at the rubble that had fallen with me, I saw that it was more or less a flawless creation, with grass, dirt, and everything.

Then I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the side by a sharp-looking knife. I tore it off.

And realized I couldn't read it. It wasn't in English, but in Japanese. The only part that was obvious enough for me to "read" was a little drawing of a bunny girl in a dress with short black hair at the bottom right corner, holding up a victory sign with her fingers.

"Hey, Nitori-chan, do you thi-"

_Thump._

A sound of something dropping onto dirt. I looked down.

A small bomb with a lit fuse was sitting there.

_Crap!_

"Nitori-chan, get down!"

A heavy _fwump_ of a body hitting the floor. I swiped up the bomb and heaved it as hard as I could up and out of the hole.

_Booom!_

I shielded my eyes away from the mini explosion. Geez, was the person who set this up trying to kill us?

_Splat!_

What was that?

I looked down, and saw three large splotches of what looked like black ink on my robe. One blot was plastered onto my arm.

"Gah, what the hell is this?" I cried in exasperation, trying to scrub out the ink. "This is a freaking white robe, for god's sake!"

Naturally, it didn't do any good; the ink was soaked into the robe until the day came for its disposal. The one on my arm had dried nearly just as quickly

"Argh, just great," I uttered. Without further ado, I reached up to climb out of the hole. Thankfully, the pit wasn't very deep, so I was able to get a hand over the edge.

"Hey, Nitori-chan, you alright?"

"Y-yes, I'm fine." She was still lying on the floor, opposite of where I was exiting the hole. "What was that?"

"Beats me. But whoever set this up armed it with an ink bomb or something."

"Eh? Are you sure? I did feel something hit me, but…."

I walked over to inspect the damage.

"W-wait, don't look!" She instantly righted herself, facing her back away from me, all the while with a bright red face.

I stopped. "Huh? Why not?"

"B-because… I-I was… th-the bomb, it…."

What?

"I-it hit… somewhere… i-indecent…."

Oh.

Wait, what?

"Huh?" I blurted out. "W-wait, you mean… it hit… there?"

She nodded furiously, embarrassed.

Okay, maybe I wasn't the unlucky one here.

"O-oh…" I said simply. Crap, how were we supposed to solve this? "U-um… do you… uh, do you have a… spare change of clothes or something? In your backpack?"

"Y-yes, I think I-"

"Change into that! I'll turn away until you're done!" I promptly averted my gaze.

"U-um… okay…."

"I-if you want… you can jump into the hole for privacy too."

"Th-that'd be okay."

A little bit of scuffling, and a light _thump_ indicated that she heeded my advice. I took a couple steps away, so as to give her some space.

Man, that was a little close. How embarrassing would it be to walk into a populated area with a massive black splotch on your butt? Good thing that crisis would be averted.

I looked back to the piece of paper. I still couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"Need a little help?"

"Gah!"

Yukari's head was coming out of a portal hole exactly next to my face.

"Geez, Yukari-sama, stop doing that! I could have fallen back into the hole, and that would have been all kinds of bad."

"Well, that certainly would have been amusing to watch."

I groaned. "Alright, cut it out, Yukari-sama. What did you come here for this time?"

"You can't read Japanese, can you?"

"Well, no, but…."

"Languages are easy for me!"

Suddenly, a hand popped out, and a single finger tapped me on the forehead. A slight jolt ran through my head.

"There you go! Buh-bye~"

"Hey, wa-"

She was already gone.

Gee, couldn't just stick around for an explanation, could she?

Oh well. I looked back to the paper once more. For a couple seconds, I stared at it.

Then the words began to move, bending, and shifting on the paper, courtesy of Yukari messing with my brain. The lines redrew themselves into English words.

_Haha, got you, Reisen! -Tewi_

Yup, Reisen was right; Tewi was one hell of a prankster. And this trap had been meant for her, not us. She must have put quite a bit of effort into this in order to set an ink bomb that would light and explode after the pitfall trap was triggered. Unless, of course, she was used to doing that kind of stuff; then this must have been pretty tame for her.

The sound of someone scrambling up dirt came. Nitori was climbing out. "Um… K-Kaito-kun?"

"Eh? What i-what are you wearing!"

She turned away, too uncomfortable to look me in the eye. Her hands were trying to pull down her shirt as a cover-up. "I-I… I didn't have anything else in the bag…."

"Then why didn't you tell me _before_ changing into that?"

"I-I'm sorry," she gasped. "I just-"

"No, don't apologize, alright?" I looked away too. "You don't need to apologize…."

Apparently, she had been right about having extra clothes in her backpack. Unfortunately, that "extra clothing" did _not_ include a spare dress. Instead, she only had what was (from what I could see, and I wasn't proud of doing so) supposed to be a classic one-piece Japanese school swimsuit, which she had put on underneath her shirt, over her underwear, and that was it. Her legs were now completely bare, and her… intimate areas were practically open to the public.

I sighed in exasperation. Geez, what kind of a development was this?

I had to find a solution to this somehow. Maybe….

"Nitori-chan, could you turn away for a quick moment?"

"Eh? W-what for?"

"Just do it, okay? I think I can help solve this problem."

She looked at me with unsure eyes, but she nodded, and obeyed.

I breathed in, breathed out, and took off my robe, laying it on the floor. Then I measured out a certain amount of fabric from the bottom, and began to tear. A quiet gasp came from Nitori, but she remained silent.

I didn't really care about the fact I was ruining a (mostly) perfectly good robe. Because a much more pressing matter – namely, the humiliation Nitori would undergo if she were to be seen like this – was at hand. Besides, it wasn't like messing up the robe would really have any dire consequences.

Once I finished tearing off that section of the robe, I put the rest back on, and handed the material to her. I did this holding out the material behind me, so as to avoid the possibility of staring at her bare legs. "Wrap this around yourself. Can't have you going around looking like you're wearing nothing but underwear.

I felt the cloth get snatched out of my hand. I kept staring ahead, feeling a light breeze play over my legs now that the bottom had been torn off. What used to reach close to my feet now just barely made it to my knees.

Then something flashed across my vision.

_Huh?_ My eyes narrowed, curious. What had that been?

The thing came again, darting between the clusters of bamboo shoots. I could hear a bit of giggling somewhere. I managed to process a vague image of the thing in my mind, and identified it to be a person with shoulder-length black hair. I thought I saw a pair of bunny ears on its head.

Was that Tewi?

And the giggling faded away, directly ahead.

"I-I'm done, Kaito-kun."

I sighed in relief, and turned back around. The makeshift loincloth-skirt just barely made it past her knees, but that was fine. Better than before, at least.

"Okay, let's get going. We still need to find Tewi, don't we?"

She nodded.

"Alright, come on. I think I have an idea where she might be."

"How?"

"I saw something in the bamboo. Let's just go."

She nodded again, smiling. I took the lead, heading off in the direction of the mysterious laughter.

* * *

_**Author's Notes**_

Yes, this is considerably earlier than normal, but I wanted to finish this up and post it now since a few things came up.

Being a high school student really sucks sometimes, and that fact is very apparent to me at this moment. My falling grades have finally gotten to my mother, and now she's forbidding me from touching the computer for any other purposes than homework. While this doesn't seem too bad, since I should probably be able to "sneak around" on the computer and type stuff and other then, I don't want to wind up pushing my mom to the point where I'm banned from the computer, period. As a result, I'm using my time now, when my mom is away, to put this up before leaving the net.

For this reason, this story is going to be on hiatus for an unfortunate amount of weeks. I can still make good of this time, as she never said anything about me writing anything in my notebooks/off the computer, so this can be a good opportunity to order out my thoughts and pre-write the next few chapters before making my way back online. So I'll be doing that for some time, and once I come back, I'm going to make sure I make up for lost time the best I can.

But enough of that stuff; now to comment on the chapter itself. Truthfully, I simply couldn't leave out the fan notion of sticking Nitori in a school swimsuit. I had the intention of simply letting Tewi screw around with the two of them for a little bit, let them get a glimpse of her, then run off, simple as that, but then I realized this was a golden opportunity to spring that. And besides, it's _Tewi._ You can seriously expect some good pranks from her, and I didn't think an ink bomb would be too far off of her arsenal of tricks.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter~

And I hope I come back soon!


	27. Chapter 27: A Long Ways Away

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 27: A Long Ways Away**

"Kaito-kun, are you sure this is okay?"

"Well… mostly. I mean, it'll be a little bit better than flying, that's for sure. If we fly, then someone might… you know, catch a 'glimpse' if they look up."

"B-but I'm a kappa. A youkai. The villagers will know me for what I am, and they won't take kindly to me."

"Don't worry about that. I'll be staying close by anyways. Maybe they'll listen to me since I'm a human."

"Um… okay then."

"Alright, come on. It's time we visited the human village."

A nod. And the two of us stepped out from our little bamboo thicket.

For the past hour or so, we had been walking, following my lead on the strange laughter from earlier. I had thought it was Tewi, and I was pretty sure I was right at that time, but we didn't find her the entire time we were travelling. Then the next thing, before we knew it, we wound up stepping out of a thick wall of bamboo to find ourselves out of the forest. Just beyond a few more shoots of bamboo was the human village.

Talk about lucky.

But this posed a slight problem; Nitori was afraid that, being a kappa, the village would treat her badly, and that by proxy, that would include mistreatment of me in the process. She suggested that we fly over the village (or more like, I fly her over, since she couldn't fly solo) or walk all the way around to avoid interaction. I pointed out that time was of the essence at the moment, and that while flying _would_ help, it would make her perfectly susceptible to flashing any onlooker that happened to glance upward. I wasn't going to let that happen (even though Nitori said it was fine), since it would automatically mark us as targets, so I asserted that going straight through the village would be the best solution. She hesitantly agreed.

And now we were leaving our little thicket, heading for the gathering of wooden buildings.

The houses and such were rather simple for the most part. They only looked large enough to accommodate three or four people each, at the most, built out of wood ranging in colors from light tan to deep brown (with maybe even a little fresh bamboo green), complete with sliding doors, and windows propped open with planks of wood. Many of them had shingled roofs, though a few had roofs made of more wooden planks.

I was pretty sure these were just the houses on the outskirts too. Probably farmhouses, considering all the open space.

It was spring now, but the planting probably hadn't started yet, since there were so many people around not really doing any work. A few kids were passing around a ball, or chasing each other for fun. Some teenagers and adults were chatting with each other, or prepping for the planting season they knew was coming. A single elderly woman was watching over the entire plantation. It was pretty relieving to see so many humans after hanging around youkai for so long.

There was just one thing that made this slightly off-putting.

Most of them were female.

Out of all the kids that were playing, only two or three out of maybe ten or so kids (from what I could count) were boys. There was only one guy (a really lonely one at that) out of a total of six teenagers or so. And there were only two or three actual adult couples, while the rest of them were women.

Bottom line: I was kind of freaked out. But I held up my composure the best I could, since I didn't want to look like a complete idiot.

"Hey, Nitori-chan," I whispered. "Has there always been this big of a difference in the girl-to-guy ratio in Gensokyo?"

"Actually, yes," she replied. "It's been like this for quite a while now, but it's never really been a problem before."

I refrained from groaning. Just great; being a guy around these parts would make me a target anyways. Hope none of the girls would look at me too weirdly.

We continued to stroll down the path leading towards the village. A couple of the teenagers noticed us, and began talking amongst themselves. The adults around took notice as well, but mostly did nothing. The kids paid us no mind. Or rather, they simply hadn't seen us yet.

I started feeling a little uncomfortable for some reason. Maybe because I was a guy walking into what seemed to be the only human village in all of Gensokyo, which had who knows how many girls walking around in it. And yet while I _was_ slightly uncomfortable about it, I didn't feel very antsy. It didn't feel like a very strange occurrence to be walking into a gathering where girls outnumbered guys. Either I was getting used to Gensokyo, or I had experienced similar outside as well.

Now the kids had seen us, and a couple were pointing at us and talking. Nitori and I were close enough now to hear bits and pieces of their conversations.

"…out of the forest?"

"Blue hair? Why…."

"…he's pretty tall…."

"…she a kappa?"

"A kappa! Why…."

Geez, they really did chatter a lot. And they weren't very careful about being personal with it, since we could hear them. I wondered if they knew we could hear them or not.

"…seen him before?"

"No. Maybe he's…."

"…with another youkai…."

I started glancing around, noticing that a lot of the people looking our way were giving us strange looks. I couldn't believe what they were saying; they thought I was a youkai too? Crud. The only way I'd be able to convince them I _wasn't_ one would be to act normal the entire time.

Then I felt a little tug on the torn hem of my robe. "Onii-san?"

I looked over my shoulder, and saw one of the little girls – about six or seven years old – gripping my robe with small fingers. Her group of friends had gathered around her.

Her way of addressing me caught me slightly off-guard. Wasn't that the way you were supposed to refer to elder siblings? I supposed it made sense, since my age practically made me her older brother, but still.

She looked at me inquisitively with bright brown eyes. "Are you a youkai?"

I stared at her in surprise for a second. That was so cute; this little girl was innocently coming up to me and asking if I was a youkai without even knowing I whether I was one or not in the first place.

I couldn't help but grin. I turned around and knelt before her, bringing myself down to her eye level. "No, I'm not a youkai. I'm a human, just like you are."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Can you prove it?"

"Eh…." I scratched my chin. I wasn't quite sure how to answer that. Gee, childish innocence really got to you sometimes, didn't it?

"Well…." I chuckled a little, scratching my head in embarrassment. "I don't know how I can prove that to you."

"Well, us humans can farm and do other stuff like that. Can you do that?"

Plain and simple question. Amazing. "Of course I can. I guess that since I'm not a youkai, I won't be able to do it any better than you." I patted her lightly on the head.

"Then you _are_ a human!" she said brightly, smiling cutely at me.

I chuckled again. Wow, this was just incredible. I hadn't thought I would be able to interact with children like this so easily after so much travelling.

Then she glanced up at Nitori. "Is your girlfriend a human too?"

My eyes widened a little. I looked up at Nitori too. Her face was turning a bright red. I wasn't surprised; I was probably turning that color too.

I laughed it off, turning back to the little girl. "She's not my girlfriend, but…."

I looked at Nitori with eyes that asked _Is it okay?_ For a moment, she hesitated, but then she nodded. Guess there was no point in trying to hide your identity when you had bright blue hair.

"…no, she's not a human. She's a youkai. A kappa. You know, the ones who swim around in the water a lot?"

"Oh yeah, I learned about them in school!" she said brightly.

Then she put a finger to her chin, confused. "But I thought youkai were bad monsters that liked to eat humans."

Well, there was a stereotype I was somewhat expecting.

I smiled gently at her. "That's only a little true. Some youkai do like eating humans, but my 'girlfriend' here…." I looked up once more with a smile on my face, knowing what the reaction would be: Nitori had flushed an even deeper shade of crimson. Her eyes read off as something along the lines of _Have you no shame?_ I laughed inwardly. "She's a good youkai. She won't eat you, okay?"

"Really?"

"Really."

Then I decided to tease her. Just a little. I put on a scary face. "But if you've been a bad little girl, then _I_ just might become a youkai, and _eat you!"_ I deadpanned, mock-jumping at her.

The girl screamed, but didn't flee. Her friends squealed in terror, running off a short distance away.

I laughed lightly. "I'm just kidding. Even if I was a youkai, I wouldn't eat you."

The girl peeked back at me from between her fingers. "You wouldn't."

"Yeah, I wouldn't. Promise." I held out a hand, pinky out. "What's your name?"

The girl studied me with childish eyes. Then she smiled back, and wrapped a tiny pinky around my much larger one. "I'm Satsuki, onii-san."

"Satsuki, huh? That's a cute name. Well, Satsuki, if I were ever to become a youkai, I promise I won't eat you."

"Thank you, onii-san!"

Her smile was that of an innocent child. So pure and untainted by the world around her. I wondered what would happen to her once she grew up.

I stood back up. "Alright," I said to Nitori. "Let's get going."

"Wait, onii-san!"

"Hm? What is it, Satsuki?"

She looked up at me cheerfully. "Can I have a piggyback ride?"

Oh my god, really? Geez, what a little kid. But I wasn't going to deny her.

I sighed lightly. "Alright then." I knelt down and bent over slightly.

"Nya!" she called out gleefully as she jumped onto my shoulders, securing her arms around my neck.

"Okay, up you go!" I declared, standing all the way up. She was pretty light, so carrying her was easy.

She laughed in delight. "Thank you, onii-san~"

I smiled. When I looked over to her, Nitori was smiling too (albeit still a little red in the face). We started walking once more, towards the center of the village of humans. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

* * *

_Wow, this is pretty large for a village._

Before leaving behind all the farmland, I had dropped off little Satsuki at her home, where a slightly grumpy middle-aged man accepted her after she leapt off my shoulders. Once we exchanged our goodbyes, Nitori and I headed off deeper into the village. Houses grew thicker as vegetation thinned out. More people were around now. We hadn't even reached the heart of the village yet, and there were already buildings lined up wall to wall. From what we could see, there weren't any formal "streets" to speak of; just pieces of land that were left untouched during construction. The roads curved in weird ways on occasion, and more than a few ended rather abruptly outside the village.

At least around here, the population seemed a little more balanced out compared to the farms outside. Here, males were marginally more abundant, walking around in the streets or manning various stalls.

Gee, must have been a thrill to live in Gensokyo if you were a guy.

Still, the increased population led to a slight problem; more people were taking notice of me and Nitori. It was already hard enough to try and walk around with a blue-haired kappa girl and not be noticed very much, obviously. Being amongst so many people made it naturally impossible. Many of those who saw us instantly knew Nitori for who she was, and were skeptical about me. I scanned around the crowds a lot, and knew that quite a few people were chatting about us. A couple even gave me a dirty look, either to label me as a second youkai, or as if to say _Are you an idiot, walking around with a kappa so casually?_

I glared back at them, practically daring them to try and come break us apart. I was taking it rather personally for some reason, and I wasn't totally sure why, but I just wanted to be able to protect Nitori, and those people were rubbing me the wrong way with their scathing eyes.

Why were they even looking at us that way anyways? Were youkai really shunned like that all the time by humans? Well, by some, at least. I didn't really understand it though; what reason did they have for disliking youkai other than the fact that they occasionally ate humans? From what I could see, they didn't even do that most of the time.

Or maybe I just hadn't met enough youkai to determine that yet. But I was pretty closely related to three of them, and knew about six or seven others.

Ah, what kind of proof was that compared to so many other youkai?

"Stay close to me, Nitori-chan," I said. "Better not to get sep-oof!"

My gaze bolted to my left arm. Apparently, Nitori had taken that to mean that she could cling to my arm.

"U-um, N-Nitori-chan," I stuttered out. "You're clinging a little tightly."

"Oh, sorry!" She loosened her grip a little, but still hung on. "But you're right. It's better to stay close so we don't get separated. We need to leave fast; I can feel some people staring at me."

"Yeah, I do too. Come on, let's move quickly."

With as much speed as we could manage, we worked our way through the crowds. They weren't particularly thick, thankfully, so we progressed fairly quickly. A few of the people we passed actually actively went out of their ways to avoid us. While I felt pretty hurt watching them do that to us, I couldn't help but also think that the faster, the better, so I paid them little mind, other than apologizing to those who did so.

There was one thing about this, however, that was really annoying me; we were completely and utterly lost. While asking for directions was supposedly a good idea, I wasn't sure if anyone we asked would be willing to help out. It was like as we walked, more and more people were looking at us negatively. I could even start feeling prying eyes rapping across my back as we went. Not good; I hadn't thought that being in the village with a youkai would bring about so much disapproval.

I finally slowed down after a couple minutes, and sighed. "I'm sorry, Nitori-chan. I really should have listened to you; I didn't think so many people would look down on you like that."

"N-no, don't apologize," she said hastily. "I feel bad for drawing those looks at you too."

"Nah, that's fine," I denied. "I feel sort of used to it for some reason. Or rather, I just don't really care that much."

"A-are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Don't worry about it, alright?" I smiled gently. "As long as we just get out of the vil-uf!"

I backed up a little, having run into someone on accident.

"Oops, I'm sorry, I ju- hmph!"

I clapped my hand over my nose. Holy crap, what was that disgusting scent?

"Oy, what's your problem?"

I stared at the guy standing there, who was about my height and age. His hair was black and disheveled, and his eyes were a deep brown. His face was thin like a snake's, and while he didn't seem very annoyed by me bumping into him, he had a very dark vibe around him.

And that wasn't even counting the fact that he had a black aura around him, unlike every other human around the area.

_G-geez… this smell… is it coming from this guy?_ What was an aura doing around him anyways? I thought humans didn't have one. Not a single one of the humans I had passed up to this point had possessed even a trace of aura.

"Hey, speak up, boy!" he commanded. It was in a tone that sounded like that of some weird jock-ish or "alpha male" type person. Or worse, maybe a womanizer. "What's up with your hand?"

"Oh, uh, n-nothing, sorry," I apologized quickly, waving my hands. "I-I just smelled something… really bad pass by just now."

"Really now? You're not referring to me, by any chance, are you, you little upstart?"

"N-no no, of course not!" I backed off a couple steps. Ignore the aura, damn it, just ignore it. "W-what gave you that impression?"

"Not much, really," he admitted. "Well, you better not be lying to me, or things might get ugly."

"Don't worry, I'm not lying to you." Crud. I hoped that warning was the only one I got.

"Alright then," he conceded. "But really, what're you doing walking around with a kappa? Don't you know youkai aren't well-accepted in these parts? Or are you just a newbie in Gensokyo?"

"W-well, uh… I am a new person to Gensokyo, and I knew the village wasn't very keen about youkai, but we have some place to go, and going through the village is the fastest way."

"Oh really now?" he inquired, apparently intrigued. "Well, I won't bother you if you've got some place to go, but I have to say, you have quite a taste in girls, even though your aim is a little _off_."

Okay, that was a really messed up comment. You've got to be kidding me; are you seriously dissing us like that?

The guy leaned a little closer to Nitori, who shied away a little, hiding behind my arm. "What's your name, cutey?" he asked in a sly tone.

Now that _really_ rubbed me off the wrong way. I stepped in front of him. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Well, now," the boy cooed. "What's with the offended tone? She your girlfriend or something?"

I sighed a bit in exasperation. Man, where were these people getting that impression? "No, she's not my girlfriend, okay? But the way you're talking to her is rubbing me the wrong way."

"Is that so?" He smiled a really sleazy smile. God, this person was a total _creep_. "Well, I suppose you're gon-"

"Excuse me, sir."

All three of us turned at once.

"Rinnosuke-san!"

"Hello there, Nitori-san," the man said, pushing his round glasses up the bridge of his nose. He looked a few years older than all of us, and had silver hair, like Eirin's but duller in shade. A large, red satchel was belted over a black-blue kimono robe. His aura was a very deep shade of gray; also much darker than Eirin's. And it wasn't very apparent either; I could only just barely make out a couple droplets compared to the more obvious ones from before.

"I'm sorry for my friend here," he said plainly. "He's with me. Please, carry on with your usual business."

The boy raised an eyebrow. With the crisis at a standstill now, I started smelling the aura again. I resisted the urge to throw up.

The boy snorted. "Whatever." And with that, he just walked off.

"Whew, that could have gotten nasty," Rinnosuke commented once the boy was out of earshot. "Are you two alright?"

"Yes, we're fine, Rinnosuke-san," Nitori assured. Then she bowed. "Thank you so much."

"It's not a problem," he said coolly. He looked at me with a critical eye. "And who would you be?"

"Eh? Um, my name's Kaito. I'm sorry for causing you trouble, Rinnosuke-san." I held out a hand.

"You don't need to apologize," he stated, shaking my hand. "Would I be correct in assuming you are the one that came in here from the outside world just recently?"

"You would be. How did you know that?"

"Marisa told me about you."

"Really? She did?" That was a little surprising, though I thought that Marisa's opinion of me wouldn't be very high, since the only time I had encountered her, I had proceeded to blow her out of the sky.

"Yes, she did. I'm a close friend of Marisa's and I noticed on Saturday that she hadn't popped by for her daily visit, or the day after that as well. Then the following day, she burst through the door rather suddenly, blurting out your name."

Wow. Honestly, I was pretty amazed. "And… what else did she say?"

"She said she couldn't believe she got stripped and blown out of the sky by a Spell Card amateur," Rinnosuke chuckled.

I sighed. Figures she would say something like that.

"By the way," he said in a rather serious tone. "Did you actually choose to do lewd things to her body after knocking her out?"

"W-w-what!" I blurted out loudly. "W-what the – I wouldn't – Did Marisa-chan say that?"

"Hm…." Rinnosuke pushed up his glasses again. "Judging from your reaction, that would be a no."

"Of course not! Why would I even _think_ about doing that?"

"I don't know. That was simply what Marisa told me."

Yeah, figures she would say that too. Good thing I knew it wasn't true. That could have gotten pretty ugly if Rinnosuke hadn't taken my word for it; he didn't seem like the kind of guy you could mess around with. That is, if his aura said anything about him.

"Well, now that that's over with, may I ask what you two are doing here in the village? I'm especially surprised to see you here, Nitori-san." He nodded at the kappa. "You hardly ever leave the Youkai Mountain, and if you ever do, you never stray very far. What brings you all the way out here?"

"That's a pretty long story," she responded. "Quite a few things happened over the past few days."

"In that case, would you two like to come to my shop to talk? I was just leaving the village anyhow."

"That would be fine. Thank you, Rinnosuke-san!"

* * *

"You've had some rather interesting adventures over this week, I see."

"Yes, we have."

"So now you're planning to head back to your workshop to pick up the generator, correct?

"That's right. I'm extremely late coming up with it now, and I need to give it to Kanako-sama as soon as possible."

"That may not be possible at the current time; it's getting quite late…."

Rinnosuke had a point there; it had taken some time to get to his house/store, since it was some distance away from the village sitting at the edge of a forest, and some more time to get comfortable. Now, after the whole story was done (Rinnosuke often asked questions), it was going into late afternoon.

"If you two have nowhere else to go, then I would not mind if you stayed here the night. You'll have to get the generator to Kanako-sama tomorrow."

"I suppose if we have no other choice, then that would be fine. Is that okay with you, Kaito-kun?"

"Huh?" I had only been half-listening. I was a little too busy looking around the shop in amazement. While it was essentially an empty and untouched shop that no one ever came by to (except for a few 'daily annoyances' as Rinnosuke called them), the merchandise he had around was absolutely mesmerizing. The shelves all around were packed with a massive array of assorted objects that were from the outside world. Many of them, I couldn't call by name, since my memory was still drawing a large blank, but I could recognize what they were, and what they were for; music players, pots and pans, magazines, a couple heaters, and all sorts of knick-knacks that apparently fell past the Hakurei boundary over time and found their way here (either that, or Yukari would bring stuff in, since she ventured out into the outside world often).

The shop didn't really stand out that much, both on the outside and inside. The outside was rather plain, looking like nothing more than a rundown, very battered house with an extension built into it, and a sign that had _Kourindou_ on it in Japanese. Apparently, the reason why it looked the way it was now was because people and youkai – particularly Reimu, Marisa, and a few others – would sometimes fight around the shop and get it damaged in the process.

Sucks for Rinnosuke.

"Oh, sorry about that," I apologized. "I wasn't really paying attention."

"It's fine," Nitori said. "I was just asking if it would be fine with you if we were to stay here tonight."

"Oh, is that it? Well, sure, why not? It's getting late, after all." I was sort of confident that travelling as a pair would be more than enough to get us through the forest to the Youkai Mountain (or at least the Hakurei Shrine, if it was close enough), but travelling at night would still be dangerous, especially since I apparently carried the scent of a human. I'd be attracting youkai to us left and right.

"Very well then," Rinnosuke declared with a sense of finality, rising from his seat (we had been sitting on the floor, next to a table). "I'll go see if I have any extra futons for you two."

"Thank you, Rinnosuke-san."

"Think nothing of it, Nitori-san."

Rinnosuke took off, going deeper into the shop and presumably into the house section of it.

"Perhaps we should help him out somehow?" I suggested. "He _is_ allowing us to lodge here for the night."

"That'd be a great idea," Nitori agreed. She stood up suddenly, pulled me up with her, and called out to Rinnosuke. "Rinnosuke-san, would it be alright if we were to help cook dinner tonight?"

A response came quickly. "If you wish to do that, then I have no objections."

"Great!" With that, Nitori grabbed my arm and started pulling me towards the inside. "Come on, let's go help."

"W-wait a moment, I don't think I've ever been around the kitchen before. Won't I just get in the way?"

"Not at all! In fact, I can teach you a few of the kappa's best recipes!"

And so she continued dragging me along. I didn't feel very comfortable with it, but perhaps it would be better to go with it. Besides, since when was learning how to cook all that bad?

* * *

"Um… you're not serious about this, are you Rinnosuke-san?"

"I'm afraid I am. This is all I can provide."

"Y-you're sure that you don't have more?"

"Yes, I'm very sure. I searched all over the house, and this was all I had. I suppose this is a price for living alone all the time."

Fantastic.

It was nighttime now. After a hearty dinner that involved quite a few cucumbers, and a nice bath (apparently, Rinnosuke's house was situated near a local hot spring), we were finally ready to go to bed. Our host had led us to the rooms that would be where we would stay for the night.

There was one problem, though.

There was only one room. And only one futon.

Big problem.

"Oh come on, are you sure you don't even have any extra rooms?" I asked in exasperation. "I'm perfectly fine sleeping without a futon, you know."

"S-so am I," Nitori stuttered out. "B-but if there's only one room… then that means… K-Kaito-kun and I…."

She didn't finish, apparently a little too stunned by the prospect. I was secretly glad she hadn't.

"I'm sorry, you two, I simply don't have any other rooms. Please understand that this is all I can give you two for the night.

"Geez…" I sighed, shaking my head. "Whatever. Come on, Nitori-chan."

"W-what?" she exclaimed. "Y-you're not saying we should-"

"If there's no other option," I cut her off, "then there's no reason to complain about it." I scratched my head in embarrassment, and I could feel heat running into my cheeks. "I don't really like the idea either, but if we have to, we have to, right?"

For a couple seconds, we were silent. Then Nitori slowly nodded.

When I looked over to Rinnosuke, he had a small smile on his face. "Be careful, you two," he said playfully.

I smacked him in the ribs.

"Sorry," he smiled, seemingly unfazed by the sudden hit to the chest. "I think I've been around Marisa for a little too long."

I ignored that, and just walked inside.

The room was barely large enough to be called one. It was closer to a closet than anything really, being only large enough to accommodate maybe a maximum of two futons at once. And speaking of futons, the one already laid out on the floor was a healthy blue color, and looked rather fluffy.

"This is it?" I asked flatly.

"This is it."

"Whatever."

I pulled the futon over to one side then sat myself down on the other. "Guess we're sleeping here for the night, Nitori-chan."

She didn't look very thrilled about it. Of course, I wasn't either.

Then, a little numbly, she shuffled into the room/closet and sat herself down on the futon.

"Here, you two." Rinnosuke held out a lantern. From where he pulled that, I had no idea. It looked like a basic lantern straight from the modern outside world, with a dial on the side for adjusting brightness and such. "I'm guessing you know how to work this, Kaito-san?"

"Yes. Thank you very much." I accepted it and twisted the dial. A bright white light came blazing out, illuminating the entire closet. It felt good to have a little bit of technology back in my hand again. It'd been so long since I'd touched anything like this. It was like having a bit of home in my hands.

Home….

I looked at the lantern a little sadly. How long had it been since I'd first come to Gensokyo? More than a week now, if I was counting the days correctly. I'd been so caught up in the events of the past days that I had never felt homesick once. I was feeling that now; a gripping sense of depression due to being away from home for so long. A home that I didn't even remember.

Why? Why didn't I remember anything about it? What could have caused me to completely forget all about my life back outside? I really wish I knew. There could have been a number of answers to explain it.

"Is something wrong?" Nitori asked. Her eyes were worried.

"Eh? No, no, it's nothing." It was a half-lie; while I did miss the world outside, I didn't see much of a reason to worry so much about it. It didn't look like I was going back any time soon anyways.

"Well, I suppose I'll leave you two here for the night," Rinnosuke concluded. "I'll come by to wake you two the next morning. Goodnight."

The door clacked shut.

I stretched myself out, yawning. "Alright, I guess we should sleep now, huh?"

"Y-yes, we should…."

"Well, goodnight Nitori-chan."

"Goodnight… Kaito-kun."

I clicked the lamp off and lay myself down on the solid wood floor I had chosen as a "bed" for the night. I shifted around a bit, trying to get comfortable, listening to the rustling of sheets as Nitori tucked herself into the futon.

But after a couple minutes, it was obvious I wasn't going to be sleeping any time soon, for a couple reasons. One, it was actually pretty cold in the closet/room, which I hadn't anticipated. It felt like it was seeping right into my skin, trying its absolute best to keep me awake. Two, as if that wasn't enough, the wooden floor wasn't exactly very comfortable. It would take a while for me to get used to this.

After another minute or two, I stopped and sighed. This was going to be really hard. Either I already had enough trouble sleeping back then, or I just wasn't used to the conditions I was in. I had no idea which one it was.

"Kaito-kun?"

She was still awake. "Hm?"

"Could I ask you a question?"

"Of course you can. What is it?"

"You… miss home, don't you?"

That was fast. Still, I had sort of fallen out of it when I touched that lantern. Should have been obvious.

"Yeah." I admitted. "Holding that lantern just reminded me of the outside world. The feel of the plastic and glass… the light clicks of the turning dial… the light bathing my face… all of it. Even if just a little bit, I could feel a piece of my home in it."

A bit of silence.

"It must hurt… being away from home for so long."

"It does, a little… but not a lot for some reason. Maybe I've spent enough time away from home to not feel it as much anymore. I'm not sure.

"But it's strange. The feeling of missing something you don't even remember. That odd hole in your chest that just won't close. No matter how much I try, I don't remember anything about my life, or the world outside. I wish I could. Just a little."

I sighed. "But I know it's no use. I don't think my memory is ever coming back, and if it ever does, it'll just be in the form of vague images that hold less meaning than before. It would be better to just try and accept that fact and move on. I don't want to keep dwelling on the past; I want to live here, now, in Gensokyo."

I turned myself over to face the futon, giving a smile I wasn't sure Nitori could see.

"Don't worry about me, Nitori-chan," I said warmly. "I'll be fine. Thank you."

Perhaps not; I wasn't sure if I could back that statement up. But I could definitely try; I didn't want her to worry about me.

"What about you?" I asked back, diverting the topic away from my own life. "What's your home like?"

"My home…?"

For a few moments, silence hung over us.

"You've… already seen my home."

My mind clicked. "Eh? You mean… that workshop… is your home?"

"Mhm…."

"So you live by yourself? Don't you have any family? Any… parents?"

"I… Yes, I do. I have parents, but… they don't visit me. And I don't visit them either."

"What?" I was left half-stunned. Why wouldn't they visit each other? Weren't they family? Nitori was living out on her own in her own personal workshop, and her parents never visited her, and neither she them?

"Well…" she began. "You know how I'm interested in engineering and building things, right? You see, I'm not like most kappa. Most of my kind is more interested in medicine and such like that. Our race is the one that taught the art of bone-setting to humans long ago, and we take pride in our great proficiencies in the medical practice. But when my parents found out I was interested in screwdrivers instead of salves, they were shocked. They wanted me to change, to turn back towards the profession our entire race was known for. But I didn't listen. Eventually, their urges began to scale up into arguments. I wanted to practice something I loved, and my parents simply didn't understand.

"Then, I'd had enough. When I was only twelve, I ran away from home. The only things I took with me were clothes and any inventions I made at the time. I put them all in my backpack, and fled all the way to the river where my workshop is, at the base of the Youkai Mountain. And I've lived there ever since…."

I never knew. I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing. Here was Nitori, the shy kappa girl who had a knack for inventions, telling me that she'd run away from home at such a young age.

"And how old are you now?" I asked quietly. While it probably wasn't the best question to ask, I wanted to know how long she'd been living like this.

"I'm going to be seventeen in a couple months."

"Seriously?" What the hell? So young! She wasn't even as old as I was!

"Yes. I'm very young for a youkai."

Even though I couldn't see her face, I could practically feel her sorrow. "But even now, after four years of living like this, I still wonder if I made the right choice or not. I wish I hadn't run away from home all those years ago. It must have hurt my parents so much to learn of my disappearance. I don't know how they are now, or if they've forgotten about me entirely…."

Whoa….

I reached out a hand, carefully making my way across and feeling along the futon to rest on what I thought was her hand.

"Well… I can't say if your decision was the right one or not… but I do know one thing for sure."

"What's that?"

"That you're stronger than I am."

"What?" she uttered in disbelief. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean what I say; you're stronger than I am. Your story… clicked a bit of my memory. I had something that I loved to do back in the other world, and my parents… my parents were like yours; they didn't really appreciate what I did.

"But I didn't have the courage to stand up to them. Sure, I still did what I did, because I loved it, but it was with silent disobedience rather than outspoken defiance. You were bold enough to actively speak and act out against your parents' wishes, something I could never do. To me, that makes you stronger than I am."

I wasn't lying about that. I could only ever imagine how it would feel to run away from home like that; never would I be able to do the act itself. Yes, I was willing to literally go to Hell and back for someone I'd only met a little while ago, and yet I was afraid of running away from home to stand up for something I loved. Gee, what a coward that made me.

Then Nitori spoke. It sounded a bit strained, kind of like she was trying not to cry. "Thank you…."

I didn't respond to that. Instead, I just smiled. Then….

"Achoo! Whoa…." I rubbed my nose, surprised by the sudden sneeze.

"A-are you cold, Kaito-kun?"

"Y-yeah…" I said slowly, sniffling a little. "I guess it was colder than I expected."

Some rustling. "Here, please, take the futon. You're only human."

"No, no, it's fine, really," I assured. "I couldn't just leave a girl ou… achoo! Uh… I couldn't just leave a girl out when there's-"

"You don't have to be worried about me!" she said a bit quickly. "I'll be fine; I'm a kappa after all. I'm used to the cold. Please." I could feel her tugging on my arm.

"No, I'm serious," I denied, resisting her pull. "It feels like this goes against what I stand for. I couldn't sleep in good conscience knowing I took the bed from a girl."

"Then… th-then…."

Oh no, she wasn't going to say-

"W-we could… sh-"

"No way," I said instantly. "That's just… no, I couldn't. Please, I'm serious, you don't have to worry about me either."

Perhaps a little more forcefully than I intended to, I pulled away my arm. "Just trust me, okay?" I smiled kindly into the darkness.

A few seconds of silence. She was considering my words.

"O… okay then…."

I sighed then turned away. I looked up at the ceiling, inviting sleep to come.

It came in only a few minutes.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

*gasp* A backstory and an author-interpreted age pin-down? What madness is this? It's the madness of being a writer of course!

Well, I guess I should take this chance to say "Hey, I'm back!" Am I really? For the most part, yes. It's spring break for me right now, so naturally, writing is now much easier for me. And my grades have gotten _marginally_ better, enough to let me back on the scene. Truthfully, by the way, on the day that I left, I had actually run out of pre-written material, so from that point onward, my posting schedule would have gotten rather erratic (which means that from this point onward, I can't say exactly when I'm going to post anything). That's not to say that I went on hiatus on purpose just because of that, though; I was very serious about having to leave due to the difficulties explained. It was just a little... convenient, I suppose. I didn't even realize it until some time after. Odd, huh?

So what happened? Over the past few days, I worked as much as I could push myself to do, trying to make up for lost time. The result was this monster chapter pushing upwards of 6500 words. Frankly, I feel kind of accomplished doing this, since it is, I would guess, maybe twice the average of all my chapters up to this point. Is it good? I'll leave that up to whoever is reading this.

Also, during my time "in stasis" I noticed that even though there were no updates, there were people _still_ reading_ it, still_ checking in on it even though nothing was happening. And even then, there were new people that came in to read it as well, with a couple people giving reviews, or even putting this story down as one of their favorites. This was very touching to see, and I thank anyone who was part of that group, and I hope that this chapter does not serve as a disappointment for that long wait.

So, a fair bit of warning: the next couple chapters I pump out are going to be traveling a lot, so bear with. It shouldn't be too hard; transitioning is usually a fairly easy skill for me, so I hope I can keep everyone on track.

Well, this is goodbye for now. Like I said, now that the pre-written material is all used up, my posting schedule will be pretty much all over the place. But I'll try my best at getting out as much as I can as fast as possible. Thank you to everyone who stuck by during the time I was absent, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	28. Chapter 28: Over The Forest To The River

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 28: Over The Forest, To The River**

_Huh… it's warm._

That was my first thought among awakening. I felt like I had been sealed into a heated envelope. When I had fallen asleep the previous night, it had been cold enough to instill a sneezing fit in me. Now, I was ready to just fall asleep again, it was so warm. So comfortable. Perhaps being in a heated envelope wasn't the most accurate thing to say; it was more like I had been wrapped into a warm, fluffy blanket.

In fact, maybe I really had been.

Wait… what?

Warmth seeped into my limbs, waking them from their chilled slumber just hours before. I could feel a bit of weight on my body, and something holding my sides. Another something felt pressed against my chest. How? When I had fallen asleep nothing had….

Oh wait, no, Nitori had still been there.

Wait… then that meant….

My eyes snapped open. They were met by a small rug of blue hair right next to my face.

Holy….

_T-too close! Crap!_

I forced myself to breathe, to calm down, so I wouldn't flip out over the fact that Nitori was right in front of my, asleep. Regardless, I was definitely ready to. What the hell happened?

Without moving the rest of my body, I lifted up my head. After a quick scan over the tiny room, I slowly understood what had happened; apparently, Nitori had chosen to either not believe me, or simply not care. Whatever the case, it seemed that I was also at least a moderately heavy sleeper too, because from what I could see, Nitori had rolled me onto the futon, then chose to crawl in next to me before drifting off (knowing her, why she did this was completely lost to me). The end result was me holding her in my arms upon awakening.

I let my head fall back onto the pillow I hadn't known I had been sleeping on. While I still didn't feel at ease being under the same futon as Nitori, I couldn't help but feel how much warmer it was under the blanket. And it wasn't just because I had fallen asleep next to a cute kappa girl I'd only just met about a week ago (though admittedly, that may have had a little something to do with it). It was more of the fact she had been bold enough to do this in the first place. I mean, sure, she was definitely more than caring enough. But to think she had worked up the courage to act like this….

Guess this was her way of returning the favor. Kind of. Not that she needed to in the first place. But this marked a second incident of falling asleep next to her.

I smiled to myself. Maybe this wasn't so bad after all. I could at least try to enjoy it, even if only for a little while.

Then the door opened.

"Rise and shine, you tw-"

About a second passed, which lasted maybe ten seconds. Then I looked up, and Rinnosuke was there.

_Ah, crap._

The shopkeeper stood there for a moment, taking in the scene. Then he promptly said "Sorry for bothering you," did a one-eighty, and closed the door behind him.

After another couple seconds of silence, I groaned quietly to myself.

_Damn it… really? Come on, what the hell?_

The universe really did love screwing with me, huh?

I sighed, and began trying to shake Nitori awake. It felt pretty awkward trying to do that with her so close (especially with what was pressing up against my chest, and I didn't dare look under the covers to check since I was pretty sure I knew what it was). Yet I couldn't quite bring myself to come out of the covers for some reason. Was it just too warm? It sounded weird, but maybe.

"Nitori-chan," I whispered as I shook her a little harder. "Hey, Nitori-chan."

"Mmh…." Her eyes, sleepy and unseeing, fluttered open.

Suddenly, I got an idea. A really stupid idea, definitely, but an idea all the same.

_Maybe I could tease her a bit?_

I let my eyes droop a little, moving my hand behind her head. I brought her head up and turned it slightly, and began leaning closer… closer… my eyes were almost completely closed….

"Yaaah!"

She was out of my loose grip in half a second. I half sat up, now looking at a very embarrassed Nitori sitting there with her hands cupped over her mouth. Her eyes told of someone who seemed caught between being immensely frightened, and terribly confused, as if hoping that what had transpired had just been a dream. Worse, I realized that her makeshift skirt had come off in the middle of the night.

A couple seconds passed in silence. I was doing my absolute best not to stare.

Then I let out a nervous chuckle, and scratched the back of my head. "Eh… good morning, Nitori-chan."

She stared at me in disbelief.

PSSH!

* * *

_My fault for coming up with a stupid idea like that. Oh well._

"Ah, good morning Kai… what happened?" I was out in the living room of the house now. Rinnosuke was resting at the table in the center, reading a book, his legs folded under the table.

"Oh, this?" I pointed at my face, wincing a bit. "Well, let's just say something happened in that room that I'm not really proud of."

"I see… well, I know better than to ask."

"Thank you, Rinnosuke-san." I sat myself down at the table.

"Did it hurt?"

"Definitely. Never knew Nitori-chan could slap so hard."

The fact that my cheek had been printed with a red hand on it for a few minutes proved that. Pretty painful.

"You'd best not do something like that again, you know," Rinnosuke warned. "Most youkai are much stronger than they look."

"Yeah, I'm figuring that out. Slowly, but surely."

"Better late than never."

For a little while, the two of us were silent. Rinnosuke had re-immersed himself in his book (which had a title that wasn't Japanese, so I was wondering what kinds of foreign languages he might have known), and I was glancing around the room to see what kind of stuff it held. The only sounds that could be heard were the ticking of the clock, and the shuffle of Rinnosuke turning a page.

Then I raised a question. "Hey, Rinnosuke? You wouldn't mind if I were to ask you something, would you?"

"Most likely not, but that depends on what you're asking. If you wish to borrow anything from me, I'm afraid the answer will be no."

"That's not what I wanted to ask."

"Very well then. What is it?"

"You're… a youkai, aren't you?"

"Yes. I am. A half-youkai, to be exact."

"Half? So you're half human?"

"That's right. What of it?"

"No, nothing. I was just curious; I saw you had a tiny aura around you, so I knew you were a youkai, but I wasn't sure why yours was so small."

Being only half-youkai would easily explain that.

"An aura, hm?" Rinnosuke inquired, closing his book. "You're a human, aren't you? How are you able to see aura?"

I gave him a quick rundown on the explanation Yukari had given me two nights ago.

"Interesting…." He immersed himself into a state of deep thought. What could he be thinking about?

"Food's ready!"

From an open doorway came Nitori from the kitchen, a large tray of breakfast in her hands. Immediately after slapping me, she had fled from the room, and I was left in a daze in the room for a couple minutes. Later, I had intended on going into the kitchen to make something to eat, but Nitori was already there, preparing something for everyone. Without letting her know I was there, I had excused myself in order to avoid any awkwardness.

The tray was laden with plates of hard-boiled eggs, bacon, cucumbers, and bananas, along with three bowls and three pairs of chopsticks.

"Ah, this looks delicious," Rinnosuke threw in, coming right out of his deep pool of thought. "You've done well with the cooking."

"Thank you," she smiled widely. "I've… had lots of experience cooking."

She glanced at me once, and I got the message; living alone had taught her a lot. Cooking was one of those things. It made me wonder what else she knew about taking care of herself.

Then she gasped silently, and stared back down at the food. That was understandable; she was still embarrassed by what had happened earlier. I rolled my eyes a bit, ashamed at my actions.

It felt kind of strange to me; Nitori was so shy and reserved, yet she had managed to run away from home, and had been taking care of herself for the past four years. So strong, yet so quiet. It was amazing, really. It didn't make very much sense to me, knowing this.

I sighed lightly.

Then, all of us put our heads down. Together, all three of us said "Itadakimasu."

And we picked up our bowls and began to eat. Rice came from an automatic rice cooker that was plugged into a portable generator (Yukari really got around, apparently). The tea came from a teapot that I retrieved from the kitchen once it was requested. The cups, strangely, were closer to wine glasses than actual cups, straight from the outside world.

"It's just a little indulgence," Rinnosuke explained when I asked him. "Some of the things I get, I keep for myself. It's not that I don't want the stuff I'm selling; I'm interested in everything that comes from the outside, but the things I offer for sale, I don't have any use for in my own home."

"I see…." I absently tipped my glass slightly, which was still filled with some tea. "Wouldn't it have been easier to keep a few other cups around, though? These ones look really fragile and could tip over at any time."

"It's not like it matters," he countered. "I live alone, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry," I apologized, scratching my head.

Unfortunately, I had accidentally let go of the glass. It hit the table with a loud _clink_ and tea spilled over the table.

"Ah shoot! Sorry! I-I'll go get a towel!" I reset the glass so as to not spill anymore tea, and made to rise from the table.

"There's no need for that," Nitori said matter-of-factly. "Here, watch."

She raised a hand, and I sat back down, confused. For a second nothing happened.

Suddenly, the tea on the table began to shift. Then it rose as if under telepathic control, molded into a sphere, and dropped itself back into my glass.

"Whoa…" I let out. "Nitori-chan, what did you just do?"

"I see she never told you," Rinnosuke piped up, pushing up his glasses. "You see, Nitori-san is special for a kappa; she's one of the few that have been granted the power of aquamancy."

"Control over water…" I said, rolling it off my tongue in an understanding response. "Nitori-chan, that's so cool!"

"I-it's nothing," she insisted, turning a slight red. "I never really thought my power was very special. We kappa love the water anyways, so it's nothing that big."

"Well, it sure sounds cool to me," I complimented, smiling.

"Thank you…."

"Hm… now that I think about it…."

"About what, Kaito-kun?"

My eyes narrowed slightly, staring off into nowhere in particular. Nitori could control water, which would explain why her two spell cards from the night going up against Mystia and Medicine had operated the way they had. But could it also explain part of my own spell card? After all, a hurricane was essentially a violent stirring of wind and _water_. Could Nitori's control over water have anything to do with me?

"Kaito-kun?"

"Eh?" Oops, I ignored her. "Oh, no, it's nothing."

Perhaps I should just keep this to myself. After all, it's only a theory.

She looked at me with confused eyes. Then she smiled.

And all of a sudden, she let out a horrified gasp.

"Hm? Nitori-san?"

She didn't respond to Rinnosuke at all. All she did was stare directly ahead, eyes lifeless.

"Hey, Nitori-chan."

Again, she didn't hear anything. Her hand drifted up to her heart.

And she collapsed backwards.

"Nitori-chan!"

I was kneeling over her in a second, shaking her by the shoulders. "Hey, wake up! Nitori-chan!" Her head bobbed back and forth, unresponsive.

"Goodness…" was all Rinnosuke could manage at first. "I think… Kaito-san, how long has it been since the day you went on your journey underground?"

"Uh…." I stressed my memory slightly, since I was in a rather panicked state. "Nearly a week now."

"Oh no," he let out, paling.

"Rinnosuke-san, what's going on? Why's Nitori-chan like this?"

"I'll explain this quickly. Kappa like Nitori-san have a special bond between them and their home river. I'm sure you know this already, but kappa are naturally beings of the water, and being away from water is like being away from their life source.

"In the old days, kappa had a hollow bowl in the top of their head for holding water, particularly water from their own home river, and if that bowl were to ever spill even one drop, the kappa would freeze up, unable to move until the bowl was refilled, and if the bowl was never refilled, the kappa would die. Kappa these days don't have that; they've evolved to the point where the water source is actually _internal_. Water taken in this way is more spiritual and magical than physical. Over time, that magic dries up little by little, and once it reaches a certain point…" he trailed off.

"They'll freeze up and eventually die!" I finished.

"Exactly. You must get Nitori-san back to her river and get her to drink from it. I don't think she'll last very long in this state; kappa back then could last for days on end being frozen, but in the present day it seems that the time cycle was reversed. She should only have about a couple hours at this rate."

"I-I have to hurry then! But… I don't even know how to get there from here. If I wander around too much, she'll…." I couldn't get the word out.

"Then I can take you there!"

The voice shocked me into awareness, and my eyes bolted to the door.

"M-Marisa-san!"

"Yo, Kaito!" The blond witch tipped her hat up to me as she entered the room. Strangely enough, she had an aura too, and it was a blazing, bright and nearly blinding gold that enveloped her entire person. It seemed to smell of fresh raindrops.

"You seem to be in a pretty big panic compared to the levelheaded guy who kicked my butt to the curb last week!"

"About that, um… I'm so-"

"Don't bother, it's all good." She grinned widely at me as she threw an arm over my shoulder. "I was surprised to find out you had gone to such lengths protect my modesty, so no hard feelings, yeah?"

"Oh… really?" She had blown off that incident so easily? Wow.

"Yeah, really! And besides…."

She put a hand on the head of the unconscious Nitori. "A friend of my friend is my friend also. Nitori was my back-up when I headed into Hell a while back. And according to that tengu, she served as back-up for you alongside Nitori when you went down there yourself."

So Aya had told her about that. Damn, news sure got around Gensokyo fast.

"You had some pretty crazy adventures over the week too, according to that old hag!"

"Old hag?"

"Yukari!"

Wow. She just called one of the most powerful youkai I'd ever seen an old hag. Though admittedly, I had to agree, since she had to be pretty old to be that powerful.

"Alright, enough of that," Marisa declared, rising. She offered me a hand. "You want to save Nitori right? Well, I can take you to her river. I've been there a few times before, you know."

I looked at her with amazement. Here was the girl I had beaten in a spell card duel on my first meeting with her, and she was blowing it off like it was nothing at all, even helping me save someone I cared about.

I smiled lightly, and took her hand. "Thank you."

She smirked as she pulled me up. "Now grab her, and let's get going. We can't afford to dawdle now, right?"

I nodded, and turned back to Rinnosuke. "Thank you for lodging us, and I apologize for leaving so suddenly." I bowed deeply.

"It's no problem. Just get going and save Nitori-san. Hurry!"

"Right!"

I swept up Nitori, and dashed out of the house to meet Marisa. She was on her broom, ready for takeoff.

"Come on, let's go!"

* * *

"You learned how to fly this well in only a week?"

"Um, sort of… I was knocked out for about half that week though, so I'm not even sure."

"That's fine. Looks like it comes pretty naturally to you, though."

"Thanks. I had help from Aya-chan. I guess her lessons sort of sank in."

We were over the Forest of Magic, heading northward. I couldn't tell how much distance we'd already covered, but considering our speed, we were making good progress. At some point, we apparently passed over Alice's cottage, and Marisa wasted no time in pointing it out. And as we continued, I thought I might have spotted the Hakurei shrine.

"Let's see, um…." Marisa glanced back and forth, scanning the trees. Then her face brightened, and she pointed. "There!"

I followed her finger, and noticed a small line where the trees disappeared. The river!

We dashed for the river as fast as we could, and descended upon it immediately the moment we were within a certain range.

Strangely, despite the fact that I was carrying an unconscious Nitori in my arms, I couldn't really help but notice how calm and beautiful the river water was. It was a very healthy, nearly magical blue, and the sound of its flow seemed almost melodic.

"Okay, so!" Marisa declared. "How are we supposed to do this?"

"I think Rinnosuke-san said she had to drink the water."

"Really? Well, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I don't think Nitori's gonna be drinking any water any time soon."

"Then how are we supposed to help her get better?"

"Beats me…."

Crap. We should have thought this through a little more. Giving Nitori water wouldn't help at all if she couldn't get it down her throat.

"We could try throwing her into the water," Marisa suggested.

"And if she can't drink the water and drowns instead?" The likelihood wasn't high, since she was a kappa after all, but if she couldn't drink anything the way she was now, then that chance was still there.

"Ah, yeah, sorry." She scratched her head in embarrassment. "But then what are we going to do?"

That was a good question; what _were_ we supposed to do? Somehow, we had to get Nitori to drink, but at the moment, it was highly likely she would not be able to do so on her own. But how could we help?

Perhaps we could somehow force water down her throat?

Maybe….

My face suddenly flushed a bright red, and I shook my head vigorously.

_No. No way. I can't believe I'm even thinking that!_

"You got an idea?"

"Eh? N-no no, I don't!" I insisted. Oh hell no, I did _not_ need Marisa getting on my case for this.

"Really? You look like you just came up with something."

"Er, i-it's nothing. I came up with a _little_ something, but it's so stupid it's not even worth mentioning."

Apparently I said that a little too quickly, because Marisa just smiled suspiciously. She leaned in closer to me. "Alright, out with it. What's on your mind?

"N-nothing, really!" I leaned backwards, away from her. "Stop looking at me like that!"

"Tell me!"

"Alright, fine!" I caved. I sighed. "Well… you know how… when someone drowns… you're supposed to help breathe for them, right?"

Her smile grew wider; it was obvious she was interested. "Yeah, and?"

"Well… what if… w-what if we were… to reverse the process? T-to do it backwards, and try to… you know… p-put water back in?"

She snorted, and laughed. "That was your idea?"

"I told you it was stupid!" I cried out defensively.

"No, no, that's not what I meant!" she threw back, holding her hands up. "I mean, it sounds so stupid, it could possibly work!"

"What? Are you crazy? There's no way that would work. It's not even worth considering!"

"Think about it! I thought you were an avid book reader back in the outside world."

"Yukari said that about me?"

"Yeah. Well, if you remembered _anything_ from the books you read, then it would be that sometimes, the stupidest things work out the best, right?"

She had to be outright _insane_ to be thinking something like that, and yet… somehow, for some idiotic reason, I couldn't deny what she was saying. Damn it, I read a few too many books back in the outside.

"And I gotta say," she said suggestively, putting an arm over my shoulder. "You're a sly one, putting on the moves like that."

I understood what she meant immediately, and my face practically lit on fire. "A-are you insane? T-that's not how it is at all! It was just the first thing that popped into my head."

"Whoa! Man, I swear, you're gonna be one hell of a heartbreaker in the future, you know."

"S-shut up, damn it!" God, this was _exactly_ why I didn't want to say anything.

"Boy, are we touchy." She sighed. "Well, get on with it already."

"What?"

"Well, you supplied the idea. Are you gonna follow through with it or not?"

"Why do I have to be the one to do that?"

"Because you're the one who came up with it in the first place. And besides, I don't think Nitori would be very happy to find out I was the one who did it."

"Why…." I sighed, giving up. There was no getting through her. "Fine… I'll do it. But don't I'm going to enjoy it."

The magician snorted. "You're about to _kiss_ a girl, and you're not going to _enjoy_ it?"

"Hey, knock it off! This is hardly something to be proud of…."

"And why not!"

"Because… because, well, I…." I looked away, unwilling to go much farther than that.

It took a few seconds, but she eventually caught on. "Oh, I get it… you've never kissed a girl before, have you?"

"No… I haven't. At least, not as far as I can remember, and that's not saying much. But that's not really the point. I'm… wondering if…."

"Oh come on. You can't be serious, can you?"

She knew what I was talking about. I'd have been a bit surprised if she didn't.

"Do you seriously think someone like _Nitori_ has ever kissed a boy before?"

Nope, she missed it. "That's only half right."

"Alright, now you're just being difficult."

"I don't want to just steal her first kiss like this!" I blurted out.

"You know you're being an idiot, right?"

I was about to argue against that, when I realized she was absolutely right. All of this was just me being selfish. There was no point in any of my argument. Here I was, worrying about a stupid kiss, and Nitori was dying.

Self-loathing welled up inside me, and I sighed. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be arguing against you like this. I'll get on with it."

Though I still wasn't going to enjoy it.

"And," I decided to point out, "If I suddenly find out later that there could have been a better method than this, I think I'm going to kill myself."

That seemed to happen a lot in books too.

I lay Nitori down on the floor, and stumbled over to the river. With two hands, I cupped a bit of water and took a sip. Surprisingly, it tasted rather good; slightly sweet, and revitalizing. If this was supposed to be magical water, I could definitely agree with that.

"You know," Marisa said. "You're definitely the weirdest person I've ever met."

"I get that a lot," I responded.

"Well, it's true. Look at you! Right now, I'm having trouble imagining that the person I'm talking to now is the same one who blew me out of the sky a week ago. I mean, last week you were tough and levelheaded, but right now, you're getting flustered over having to kiss a girl, and you give way easily."

She shook her head, smiling. "I just don't get you at all."

I smiled slightly to myself, shrugging. "I don't get it either. I don't even know who I'm supposed to be in the first place. But it's just the way I'm acting now."

Marisa laughed. "Well, I guess so. Whatever, now's not the time to be worrying about that. We'll worry more later when you get Nitori back on her feet."

"Yeah."

I took a second handful of water, sipped it, but didn't swallow. Then I walked back over, fell to my knees, and held up Nitori's head.

_This is the stupidest thing ever_ I thought. _And ironic, at that, compared to earlier in the morning, but… it's all we've got to go by at the moment. Nitori, if you remember any of this later, then please forgive me._

I brought her up closer, tilting her head slightly back.

_And if you don't, then heaven help me if Marisa tells you._

I steeled my nerves the best I could, and planted my lips.

The water in my mouth trickled out, flowing into the mouth of my receiver. Once I thought there was enough, I blew, squeezing out at much breath as I could, pushing the water, hopefully, down Nitori's throat.

After a couple seconds, I broke away, a raging inferno running across my face. That had been…. I couldn't even find the words to describe it. Partially because my brain was fried and couldn't really make out a sentence at that moment (maybe Kaguya had been right; I was pretty bad at dealing with girls, wasn't I?), partially because it was sort of indescribable in the first place.

Admittedly, however, her lips were… really soft… kind of like water. I didn't think you could get much softer than that.

Didn't change the fact I was red as hell, though.

All of a sudden, Marisa cracked up, and started laughing uncontrollably.

"What the hell?" What in the world was she doing?

"N-no, no, i-i-it's nothing," she managed between spurts of laughter. Then she stopped… and just fell to the floor and started rolling a bit.

"You know, this isn't funny at all," I pointed out blatantly.

"Right, right, sorry," the magician choked, wiping a single tear from her eye. "I'll wait until I get home to start laughing. But besides that, so? Did it work?"

"I don't know." I looked back down. Nitori still wasn't moving, but she hadn't given any indication that she had choked or anything. Had it worked?

Another couple seconds passed in tense silence.

Then, all of a sudden, Nitori coughed several times in quick succession.

"Nitori-chan!"

"Mmh…."

Her eyes drifted open. In a moment, they were written with confusion. "Kaito… kun?"

My lips opened into a wide smile, and I hugged her tightly. "Nitori-chan, you're okay!"

She didn't react immediately, apparently too confused. And when she did, she didn't do much more than express that confusion. "W-what's going on? What happened? And… why are we at my river?"

"I can explain that!"

"Ah, Marisa! Long time no see."

"Likewise! Anyways, let me give you the rundown…."

I let go of Nitori after that; it was kind of awkward holding her like that (and I was pretty sure she was curious as to why my face was so red). Marisa explained everything almost perfectly from the point she had apparently come in, which apparently had been some time right after she had collapsed.

"I-I can't believe I caused everyone so much trouble!" Nitori said the moment Marisa got all the way to when we were at the river. During the explanation, she had been hungrily drinking up the river water. "I'm so sorry!"

"No, no, it's no big deal," I assured. "Besides, we're at the river now, right? Now we can get your generator and give it to Kanako-sama."

"I guess so."

"Well, looks like this all worked out fine," Marisa interjected. "Man, I gotta tell you, Nitori, this guy was in a real panic when I got there!"

She threw an arm over my shoulder and winked at Nitori. "Seriously, you should've seen him! I swear, if I hadn't come in when I did, he would have lost his head."

"Really?" She looked at me inquisitively.

"Well… yeah," I managed. "I mean, you're my friend. Of course I'd be worried. When I saw you just collapse…." I trailed off.

To be honest, when I saw her hit the floor, I was hit with a strong pain and sense of fear. I couldn't really process why I felt that way. It was just… I was suddenly extremely afraid of losing her. Perhaps it was just because we'd been through so much together, but I simply couldn't stand the thought of her dying. In fact, it wasn't all that different from my time in Hell, when I was scared that Utsuho might die from overuse of her powers. But this time had been much stronger.

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't apologize, please. I'm just glad you're okay." I smiled.

Silence.

Then Marisa decided to spoil a decent moment. "Well, you two lovebirds seem to be getting along fine!"

"Hey!" I cried indignantly. What I had done was already bad enough. I didn't need Marisa making it worse.

"Kidding! But anyways, why don't you give me the full story? I want to hear all about what's been going on around you."

I think a small part of me had been expecting that, because I didn't feel at all surprised. But I went ahead with it, starting from my time in Hell, going all the way up to the point where she had come into the shop.

"I gotta say, you've done almost as much in about a week as me and Reimu did in maybe two incidents."

I didn't bother asking about what an 'incident' was, though I had a feeling in my gut that the 'imperishable night' Reisen had been talking about was something related to that. I nodded. "Yeah, but in a week of all this, I still haven't figured out what my ability is."

"What do you mean? I thought you said that your ability was being able to see aura, or whatever."

"Yeah, but that's not all. Watch." I pointed my fist in a direction that lead off into open air, and I focused. A yellow energy blade burst from my fist.

"Whoa!" Marisa was so startled that she nearly fell backwards to the floor. But she was grinning. "That certainly came out of nowhere. Where did you learn to do that? I thought that bird Utsuho was the only one who could."

"I thought so too," I agreed. "But I'm not done."

I shut off the blade, letting it melt back into my fist. Then I threw out my hand twice more. The first time showed a palm blast, the second let loose a volley of water.

"See? All I've been doing up to this point is imitate what others are able to do. It's like I've become a living copier."

"Interesting…" Marisa cooed, stroking her chin.

Then her eyes lit up with an idea. "Here, try this."

She stood and drew back her hands. When she thrust them forward, a burst of six head-sized multicolored stars came pouring from her hands.

"Give it a shot!"

I raised an eyebrow. I wasn't quite sure what she was trying to do. Maybe she just wanted to see if I could copy her as well.

"Well, alright then," I sighed, rising from my place on the floor. "Nitori-chan, could you move? I don't want to hit you."

She promptly got up and moved a safe distance to the right.

"Show me that again," I asked.

Marisa complied, letting forth a second wave of star shots.

"Hm…."

I faced the same direction she was – downriver – and drew back my hands in the same fashion. I could feel power welling itself up in my hands, and I almost instantly knew that it was going to work.

When I brought my hands together, six multicolored stars charged forward.

However, when I fired, I hadn't seen someone suddenly come out of the bushes, and that person got a faceful of red, yellow, and green.

"Whoa!" I cried the instant I realized I had hit someone, and I ran at them. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. Are you alright?"

The girl groaned as she rose. Her hair was short, snow white, and was accompanied by both a red hat (which looked identical to Aya's) and white wolf ears. Her dress was a white robe with detached sleeves and a black dress with a red spike pattern along the hem. Over her shoulders were the hilt of a rather large looking sword, and a shield.

"Momiji!" Nitori blurted out.

"You know her?"

"Agh, what was that for?" the wolf named Momiji accused. She crossed her arms, though I thought I could see her hand twitching a bit, so she seemed to have half a mind to draw her blade on me. "You're not trying to pick a fight, are you?"

"No, of course no-"

"Wait a minute…" she interrupted. And her eyes brightened in an instant. "Nitori!"

"Momiji, it's so good to see you," the kappa cheered, embracing her friend.

Okay….

"Where have you been all this time?" Momiji asked once they broke apart. "And who the heck is this guy?"

"That's a long explanation…."

"I'm off duty right now, so I have some time to kill. Go on; I want to know everything."

* * *

"Hmph… I thought Aya was pulling my tail when she told me about you, but I guess she was telling the truth."

"It does sound pretty unbelievable doesn't it?"

"Got that right."

I don't know how long the entire explanation took, since it went almost all the way back to when I first came into Gensokyo in the first place. But by the end of it, Momiji seemed satisfied.

"Well, time waits for no one," Momiji declared. "Come on everyone; I'll get the Youkai Mountain guard to retrieve the generator. While they're at it, we can all go visit the Moriya shrine personally."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Marisa cheered. She leapt onto her broom and swept up Momiji.

"See you two there!"

With that, she took off.

I sighed. Man, Marisa sure went along with the flow quickly. "Well, I guess we'd better get going. Come on, I'll give you a ride." I knelt down, motioning for her to climb on for a piggyback ride.

"Um, okay."

She was about to, but then she stopped. "Wait a moment."

"Hm? What is it?"

"I was thinking about this for a little while; who gave me the water so I could recover?"

A blush ran itself across my face in a second, and I turned away in embarrassment. "Um… It was me. Marisa… sort of just let me do it."

"She did?"

"Y-yeah…."

"Huh…."

A couple seconds of silence. And suddenly, Nitori let out a horrified gasp.

"Is something wrong?"

When I looked back, her eyes reflected complete disbelief. Something was very wrong.

"Hey."

"Eh? N-no, no, i-it's nothing… don't worry. I just have to ask Marisa about something later."

She gave me a weak smile. It looked ready to break into a thousand pieces at the slightest provocation. I wanted to ask.

But I didn't think it was my place to do so.

"Alright then," I said uneasily. "Come on."

She climbed onto my back and carefully secured her hands around my neck and shoulders. Once I was sure she was stable, I took off, heading in the same direction Marisa had gone.

All I could think about was what had disturbed Nitori just then.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

Despite being completely behind my usual 4-day schedule, I'd say this chapter came out rather quick. But I really need to pick up the pace; this chapter was a monster to write as well. A bit of a smaller monster, yes, but still large nonetheless.

SomeBITGamer, you were spamming "I want romance!" at me for the longest time. Well, this better be fulfilling that! If you keep spamming me about it, I'm only gonna make you wait longer, you know.

Yes, VirusChris and Wrathkal, you two were absolutely right. Realistically, how else would it turn out? But then again, it eventually went rather bad, so... yeah.

By the way, can anyone guess why Nitori freaked out there? This is a point where having handy research facilities (*cough*Wiki*cough*) really pays off, as you get to show your work that way. There's a point here that Marisa knows that she isn't telling. Any takers? If you guess it right, I'll give you a cookie.

The two gods come up next time. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	29. Chapter 29: Call For A Master

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 29: Call For A Master**

"All troops, at attention!"

Two lines of fairies at the edges of the path leading up to the shrine stood erect, wings flapping furiously to keep them in form.

"Salute!"

Every fairy drew a sword and shield from their backs. All of them were identical to Momiji's; scimitars with black cross guards, and white shields emblazoned with a large orange maple leaf. Their blades pointed skyward, granting a hall of swords through which to pass.

"At ease!"

The swords were gone, and back into their sheathes. The welcome was finished.

I certainly hadn't expected to find out Momiji was captain of the Youkai Mountain guard. But I wasn't going to complain; this was actually pretty cool. But I understood that if anyone dared to trespass, they were going to get their ass kicked.

Momiji turned to us and bowed. "Shall we proceed?"

Three heads nodded in affirmation. And as one, the four of us walked.

The flight trip to and up the mountain had been much longer than I expected. Off in the distance, the sun was halfway past the horizon. In total, I would guess that the trip from the river to the mountain had taken no less than an hour and the trip up had been at least twice that. About half way up the mountain, we were greeted by an advance guard of fairies bursting out of the waterfall. It surprised me to the point that I nearly lost control and started plummeting towards the ground (Marisa wasn't at all fazed though).

During our time going up, we spoke little. I'm not sure why, but apparently silence was the mode we were going for, and none of us really wanted to break that silence. Marisa didn't mind at all, and Momiji didn't seem in much of a mood for talking anyhow. But I noticed Nitori had been eyeing Marisa rather strangely. I had half a mind to ask her what was up, but I didn't want to intrude upon her privacy, expecting it to have something to do with when I had given her the water at the river.

That definitely wasn't my place to ask.

But it was hard trying not to. I could barely get my mind off her freak-out back at the river the entire time we were flying. And it was made even more difficult by the fact that I had to consciously carry that same person up a mountain and make sure she didn't fall of my back.

I'd have to leave that to Marisa, and hopefully, things would get better with time.

The path up to the shrine was simple, and made of stone, much like the one for the Hakurei shrine. What made it different, however, was that alongside the fairies, it was lined with bunches of wooden pillars stretching at least two stories upwards. At the end of the path sat a gate, with stairs leading to a point just a little farther up a small hill, and the shrine itself sitting at the very peak of the mountain.

At the foot of the steps were two people. The first and most imposing one was a tall blue haired woman that looked to be in her early thirties or so, wearing an elaborately-decorated red shirt and a deep maroon dress with floral print on the hem. Upon her back was a large rope circle that seemed to float of its own accord, along with the white papers that hung from it.

The second was closer to the ages of Nitori and I (and I would guess Marisa as well), sporting bright green hair done up with two ornaments; a coiled snake, and the head of a frog. Her outfit was much like Reimu's, except color-shifted to a blue-lined white vest and detached sleeves, and an ocean blue dress with white polka dots. In one hand was a small stick of wood with a large piece of white paper attached to the end.

The four of us stopped a short distance from the two. The elder one, who I assumed was supposed to be Kanako, looked down on us (even me) in a stern, and maybe sort of motherly, fashion.

All of us bowed as one. Momiji was the only one who spoke. "Kanako-sama, I come bearing guests from the mountain's foot."

The woman nodded. "Thank you, captain. Let them speak."

Momiji stepped aside, and we stepped forward, with Nitori at our front.

"Good evening, Kanako-sama," she greeted, bowing again. "I bear news about the generator you requested from me."

"I see. You're quite late in coming with that. What happened? Do not worry; I do not believe your lateness to be intentional."

"That is quite a tale to tell, Kanako-sama. But I will first say that the generator is finished, and even as we speak, several of Momiji's guards have been sent out to retrieve it."

"Then all is well."

Then her gaze turned upon me. In that instant, something flashed past my mind's eye. It felt like some greater presence than just the woman standing before me. It was like part of nature itself had chosen to look at me with gentle yet unrelenting force. It took almost all my will not to be disrespectful and turn away, though I did flinch slightly.

"The boundary youkai Yukari told me of a young man by the name of Kaito that has been journeying around Gensokyo. Would I be correct in assuming that person is you?"

"You would be," I confirmed, stepping forward. Geez, if Yukari didn't stop telling people about me soon, I would be known across all of Gensokyo, though I was pretty sure that was already true. "If I may, I must inform you that I had a hand in both the production and hindrance of the generator, and for that, I apologize."

"It's no trouble." This time, it was the green haired girl who spoke. "You were able to help Kanako-sama's project along, so there is no trouble in having hindered it for a little while."

I bowed to her. "Thank you." And I stepped back.

Kanako breathed in, outstretching her arms. "Today is a good day, for in a short time, the blessings of electricity will be free for all of Gensokyo to enjoy. You four, rest your tired bodies, for you may find lodgings within the shrine tonight as honored guests."

I thought I could hear a very quiet "Yes!" behind me, and I was pretty sure it was Marisa who had said that.

"Yippee! Is it party time?"

The voice had come from above. All of us looked up to the gate, and saw two figures standing upon the top, shadowed by the setting sun. One had twin horns, and the other had what looked like a really large hat.

Suika and… who?

Wait, what? What was Suika doing here?

Without warning, the figure with a hat crouched down, as if preparing to leap a great distance.

And leapt off the gate, straight at me.

I had about a single second to process a _Holy crap!_ just before impact.

PO-KSSSSH!

The breath was completely driven out of me; the living projectile had hit me right in the chest. Even though it looked to be no more than maybe a ten-year old, the force that hit me felt like it had the weight of a small hill. The hit drove me into the floor, and sent us sliding for several meters.

When the dust finally cleared, I looked up into the shadow of the little person kneeling on me.

It was a young girl with blond hair, and a large, brownish-yellow hat with googly eyes on the top. Her dress was purplish-blue, and the sleeves white. And she was smiling cheerfully.

I coughed. "O-ouch…." I could barely get the words out; the little girl made it feel like I had a piece of the world sitting on me.

"So you're Kaito, huh?" she greeted. "Well, I'm Suwako. I'm the second goddess of the Moriya shrine."

My brain was still a little frazzled from the impact, so I didn't really catch the 'second goddess' part. Then I processed it, and it struck me as odd. Two goddesses? Then who was the first?

But that didn't matter to me at that moment. All I cared about was the fact I was practically being crushed. "N-nice… to meet you… Suwako-sama… now… could you… get off… I can't breathe!" I gasped.

"Oh? Ahaha! Sorry about that!"

The moment she hopped off (as in, literally hopped off, like a frog), I sat up, gasping for air. Nitori was at my side, Momiji was standing there pinching the bridge of her nose, and Marisa was laughing her head off.

"I never thought," Marisa choked between spouts of laughter, "that I would _ever_ see a shrine goddess do something like _that!_"

"You're okay, right?" Nitori asked, concerned.

"Yeah… I'll be fine."

"Suwako-sama," the teenager said, shaking her head. "Why did you have to go and tackle a guest like that?"

"What's wrong, Sanae?" the little goddess pouted. "Is it bad to have a little fun every once in a while?"

"No, that's not what I meant…."

"Aw, come on, lighten up!"

A burst of mist came out from behind the girl named Sanae, and Suika popped out, wrapping the shrine maiden in a head lock. "Your goddess just got told that an important project was finished, right? So why not loosen up a bit?"

"Well, I suppose so…."

Suika grinned widely, and took a long draw from her gourd. Then she released her unwilling target and strode right over to me, drunk as ever.

"Yo! Haven't seen you in a while, Kaito!"

"Yeah. Hey there, Suika-san."

"Been doing good, eh? I see you've made quite a few friends!"

"Ehehe, yeah, it's been good. Thanks."

"You up for a drink? My offer's still going, you know."

"No thank you. I still don't feel quite ready for a drink of sake."

She shrugged. "Alright then. Well, that doesn't matter. It's time to _party!_"

She raised her gourd triumphantly. A murmur of assent ran through the crowd of fairies. Apparently they were into the idea.

One of them was bold enough to actually fly right up to Momiji. "Can we, captain? Today is a good day for celebration!"

The wolf raised an eyebrow. Then her eyes narrowed, and she thought for a moment.

She smiled. "Very well then. Send out the order to the troops; tonight, we party!"

Cries of joy were thrown to the sky as the fairies cheered, hugging each other and making merry.

"Then we shall prepare a feast for our guests!" Kanako declared. "Sanae! Suwako! Let's go."

The three of them turned, and headed up the steps to the shrine, along with a few of the fairies. The rest of us were left to relax for the time being.

I smiled as I watched them go. So the deed was done; the generator would be delivered, and Nitori's task was finished. I couldn't have been happier.

"Um…."

I turned to Nitori. Her eyes weren't looking at me, and she was somewhat red in the face.

"I-if it's okay… I would like to go talk with Marisa now."

That threw me for a tailspin. Since when did Nitori ever have to ask me for permission for anything?

"Uh… sure," I said uncomfortably. "Go right ahead."

She nodded. "Thank you."

With that, she got up, and caught Marisa before the latter could take a drink with Suika. After a few words, the blond witch smiled goofily, and the two walked off to where they could be alone for a little while.

I watched them go. This was really starting to worry me. What was wrong?

"Oy, Kaito-san."

"Oh, Momiji-san." I stood up to face the white wolf. "What is it?"

"Something seems to be up with Nitori. You have any idea what it is?"

My face fell. I should have known she would try and consult me about this.

"I can't say I'm sure," I replied. "I think it may have something to do with the fact I was the one who gave her the water to revive her."

"Wait, _you_ were the one who did that?" Momiji asked in disbelief. Now her eyes reflected concern. "I thought Marisa would've been the one to do that."

"No, it's was me."

She grabbed me by the shoulders. Now I was really scared.

"Tell me, how did you do it?"

"W-what do you mean?"

"How did you give Nitori the water?"

Talk about an uncomfortable topic! My face went bright red, and I started stuttering. "Uh… T-that's, er… I-I…."

"Just calm down," the captain said soothingly. "Just calm down, and tell me. How did you wake up Nitori?"

"Um… W-well…."

"Okay, I'll make this easier. Did you, or did you not, give her the water through mouth-to-mouth?"

I couldn't hide my guilt when she said that, and I stared down at the floor.

"Y… yes…."

She groaned. "Oh, for the love of…."

Her hands were gone, and she paced a bit, once again pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Why in the name of the daitengu did you do that?" she accused.

"I-I just… t-that was just the first thing that came to mind," I tried to explain. "I didn't think giving her water normally would have worked."

A loud, drawn out sigh.

Oh god… this was turning out worse than I expected. Even Momiji knew that what I had done was wrong. I should have at least _tried_ to give her water normally before going straight to mouth-to-mouth. How could I have been so stupid?

When Momiji turned back to face me, she had an understanding but slightly threatening look.

"I'll assume that the reason you made such a stupid mistake was because you were inexperienced with the workings of Gensokyo, and I will not blame you too much."

Her last few words struck hard. How could she not blame me that much for such an idiotic move?

"But I'm afraid that if I do not make you understand the consequences of your actions, then I'll have to personally punish you."

"I understand. Just tell me. I need to know."

Not just because I felt like I was being completely left out in the dark amidst all this – Marisa and Momiji both knew exactly what was up – but because I felt entirely responsible.

Of course, it really _was_ all my fault, and I needed to know exactly what I had done wrong.

"Okay, then listen well. There is an ancient, binding tradition of the kappa that concerns the replenishing of their water supply. The details of it are unclear to me, but I do know how it's supposed to work in the present time. When a kappa is left without water, and is about to die, refilling it normally by simply pouring the water down their throat does not do anything but bring them back from the brink of death. _However, _if a _human_ is the one who revives them, and does so using _the exact method you so carelessly used, _the kappa is bound to servitude for that human for _eternity_."

She punched those words with extreme emphasis, as if to drive the point home as far as possible. She said she didn't blame me, but that hadn't stopped her from making sure I knew what the hell was going on.

She didn't even need to. The instant she said that, my eyes widened in horror.

My god… what did I just do…?

"The reason for this bind is because, since the kappa's home body of water has particular properties with that one kappa, it is essentially laced with magic. When a human gives mouth-to-mouth to a kappa and administers water at the same time, they're _crossing magically enhanced water_ between the two of them. This makes the bind two-fold, because it also implies a certain level intimacy due to the swapping of body fluids alongside the magic. Your carelessness has forced Nitori into a contract from which she is unable to escape."

I took a single step back.

And another.

"No…."

Oh my god….

I dissolved into despair, shaking my head. "No… I…."

My breath caught in my chest as my heart felt ready to rip itself out.

The tears came then, and I couldn't take it anymore.

I fled.

* * *

_Why…._

_Why did this have to happen…?_

That was all I could think about as I cried quietly to myself. I had leapt off the mountain earlier, and chosen to fly a short distance down. When I got to a certain point, I pushed through the waterfall, and found a large, hollowed out cave behind it. I went all the way to the deepest, darkest, and most dank part of it, and curled up there, staring into the darkness.

There had been a couple fairies here when I first came in. But the moment I slogged into the cave, every single fairy seemed to get the message that I just wanted to be left alone, and promptly left.

_How could I do this to her…? How… why…?_

This was all wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. It was a perversion of everything I stood for. I had just accidentally, and essentially, enslaved Nitori, and I was her master. That was what I had turned our relationship into; we went from friends, to master-and-servant.

If anything, I wanted to just turn this all around. To make it like it never happened in the first place. A small part of me wanted to stick the blame on Marisa, because she had known what would happen, yet chose not to stop me. But I knew I couldn't. For some reason, in my heart, I knew that it was my fault. Because I had come up with that stupid idea in the first place. There was no one else to blame but me.

All of this was my own fault….

Then, out of the blue, I felt something coming from the entrance of the cave at the same time as I heard the footsteps. Someone had come out to find me.

"Kaito-kun…."

Damn it all. It was Nitori. She was the only one here who referred to me under that honorific.

I curled up a little tighter, feeling the weight of my guilt grow even larger in her presence. I didn't answer.

The steps grew closer, and the aura sense grew stronger. "Kaito-kun…."

I closed my eyes tightly, hoping to shut out the noise. It didn't help; her voice was echoing off the walls, and it was inescapable.

But this time, I answered, in a very strained fashion, like I was trying to strangle myself to death. "What is it?"

A few more steps, and it came to a stop. Then something hit the floor. She had knelt down behind me.

"Kaito-kun, I…."

I wanted her to stop. I didn't want to hear anymore; I already felt guilty enough. But I knew if I said anything, she would be compelled to obey, and I didn't want that either.

"No… I shouldn't call you that… I should be saying Kaito-sama…."

A change in honorific. And the second wall was raised.

"I… I'm sorry…."

I think I snapped there.

Why? Why was she the one apologizing? She wasn't at fault at all here! Why?

"I-I was careless… and I made you go through so much trouble because of it. I'm sor-"

"Don't say it," I interjected.

Silence.

"Don't say you're sorry," I uttered shakily. "You shouldn't be the one apologizing. The only one who needs to apologize to anyone is me."

"No, you don't have to. Please, if anyone, I sho-"

"No!" I nearly shouted.

The near-shout reverberated off the walls, carrying it all the way out.

"You shouldn't be the one saying that," I cried. My voice had marginally leveled out, and it was no longer that loud. "It wasn't your fault. The only one at fault here is me. I was far more careless than you. I was the one who revived you when we got to the river. I was the one who _turned you into a servant!_ None of this was your fault at all!"

Now I was crying even harder, and I could no longer hide my silent sobs. They slowly began rattling out as I gave into anguish.

"And yet you're the one trying to apologize…."

I turned all the way around, so I was kneeling, facing her. My arms were locked in place, hands tightly gripping my knees practically to the point of breaking them.

"Why? Why are you trying and apologize? Why are you trying to take the blame when I'm the one who deserves all of it? WHY?"

I shouted that last word. Almost every single bit of my despair and self-loathing was belted out in that single word.

For what felt like an hour, I could hear nothing above the waterfall outside, and my quiet sobs echoing around the walls.

Then Nitori spoke. "Because you don't really deserve the blame."

I was so shocked by her answer, I almost stopped crying.

What in the world was she talking about?

"It wasn't your fault for not knowing the traditions of Gensokyo. I know you didn't intend on doing what you did, and I won't condemn you for being inexperienced. There is no shame in making a mistake that you know will not happen again."

She placed a single comforting hand on one of mine. I couldn't look at her, managing only to stare at her hand. But my arms loosened up a little. Just a little.

"You have to forgive yourself for this. It won't do for you to take the blame for something that was not your fault.

"But… even if you do not forgive yourself… then know that I forgive you."

My eyes widened.

Could she really mean that?

Very slowly, I looked up. The eyes I met were soothing. Understanding.

My insides turned to putty.

"Please… forgive yourself. And if you can't forgive, then please, forget. I will forgive you either way."

Tears were shed anew.

I couldn't believe it….

My lip began to tremble.

Without warning, I yanked Nitori into a tight hug. She gasped.

"Nitori-chan… I… I don't know what to say. But… the least I can do is… thank you…."

That was all I could manage before my voice began going hoarse. The sobs still came, but they were much more controlled now.

Then, I felt her arms on my back. "You don't need to thank me… Kaito-sama…."

That single name brought me back down to earth rather hard. I let go immediately. This was going to be difficult….

"Um… Nitori-chan," I choked slightly, rubbing away my tears. "Wait a second, I-"

"One moment!" she interrupted. "There's something I need to tell you first."

"H-huh?" My head was still spinning from my own stupid actions. If anything, the very tiny smile on Nitori's face threw me off even more.

"There's a small part of this pact that even Momiji and Marisa don't know about. It's a secret that is kept from anyone that is outside the pact."

"R-really? Oh…." That made me feel a little worse about forcing her into this, since now I was being divulged in a kappa secret. But I brought that around on myself. No point in trying to complain.

"Alright, well, what is it?"

"The pact isn't really eternal."

I blinked.

"W-what?"

She was kidding, right?

Her eyes darted away shamefully. "I'm sorry I didn't explain this earlier. I could have helped save a lot of pain. But the truth is, this contract, while binding, can be revoked. Once a whole week has passed since the contract was made, then the master can choose to call off the contract if they wish. It was a newly implemented system that came around only a few centuries ago."

My mouth just hung agape. What the heck?

"Please, don't be mad," she pleaded. "I-I just got caught up with how bad you must have felt doing something like this. I'm sorry!"

"No, you don't have to. Honestly, I don't think anyone would have been able to control themselves in the face of something like this."

"So… you're not mad?"

I shook my head. "Of course not. Why would I be mad?"

"But, I thou-"

"No, it's okay. Just drop it, alright?"

She opened her mouth to argue. But then she closed it, and nodded.

I was about to feel relieved, until I realized I had essentially just given her a command. That meant that she only stopped herself because she was _supposed_ to obey me.

Oops.

I sighed. "Look, Nitori-chan… We're going to have to do something about this…."

She cocked her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

I turned away in discomfort. "Well, you know… being in the… m-master-servant relationship…."

I didn't want to say that, but there was no other way to put it. And it put me beyond uncomfortable.

But it wasn't just because of the new relationship we were suddenly shoved into. It felt like something deeper than that. Overcoming these walls – now that I was calm and thinking much more clearly – would actually be relatively easy. But that wasn't all, for some reason.

"Oh… right."

I sighed. "Look, I just don't really feel comfortable with this whole 'master-servant' thing. It's just…."

"What is it?"

"Well, I've only known you for a week! How can I feel comfortable knowing your my servant? This is going to sound a little selfish, but couldn't you just be my friend instead?"

"What? You mean…."

"Yes. I don't want us to have to act any differently just because we're supposed to be master and servant. Please, I want you to treat me like you usually would. Just like before. Before… all this."

"But-"

"No!" I grabbed her by the arms, feeling desperate. I wasn't quite sure why I felt like this. All I knew was that I didn't want this wall to drive us too far apart. "Listen to me. What do you want to see me as? A master, or a friend?"

She looked at me with cautious eyes, as if seriously considering my question. "Um… Well…."

I pulled her a bit closer. "I don't want to see you as a servant. I want to see you as my friend. You get what I mean, don't you?"

She nodded numbly.

"Then why can't we?" I asked, smiling. "We can be that, can't we? Just Be Friends?"

For just a moment, Nitori's eyes stared into mine. I wasn't sure how she would respond, but it looked like she understood what I meant. This wasn't a command; it was a question for her to answer on her own.

And she nodded, and hugged me. "Yes. We can. I'm sorry… Kaito-kun."

And the honorific changed back. Thank god.

"Well, you two seem to be getting along!"

"Gah! W-what the- Marisa-san, where did you come from?"

The witch grinned at me as she came between Nitori and I. "What? You didn't think Nitori managed to get into this cave on her own, did you?"

Oh. I'd completely forgotten that Nitori couldn't fly on her own. Marisa was right; the only way she could have found me here was if she had help.

""Come on, you two! The party isn't going to start if its four honored guests aren't there, you know."

"Four?" I pointed out. "Then-"

"Yes, I'm here too." In walked the white wolf.

"I'm sorry for causing you to flee like that," she apologized. "I was too harsh on you. I was simply angered at the fact that your stupidity wound up enslaving one of my only friends throughout the entire Youkai Mountain range. Please, forgive me."

"No, it's fine," I assured, scratching my head. "Honestly, I think you should have scolded me more. I really did deserve it."

Momiji shook her head, a small smile on her face. "It doesn't matter; you understand the consequences of your actions. That is enough for me."

I nodded. "That's good."

I finally stood back up after so much time. "Well, it's time to go back. Shall we?" I offered a hand out to Nitori.

My friend.

She smiled, and took it. "Yes."

* * *

"_Yeah! Party!"_

It had been an hour since the four of us got back. The moment we returned, we were ushered into the shrine to sit at the head of the table near Kanako, and the party officially began. Food was consumed by the plateful. Drinks were passed around the table constantly, and many chose to partake in a drinking contest. Marisa and Momiji could both hold their liquor surprisingly well (or at least, they managed about three or four cups of sake before actually _choosing_ to call it quits), and Sanae complained that Suwako shouldn't be drinking all that much – or better yet, not at all (despite her being a millennia-old goddess).

I excused myself from the festivities, wishing to have a little peace and quiet. I didn't want to sleep yet though, so I just sat myself on the top step of the shrine porch.

It felt good, looking out at the sky like this. We were at the top of a mountain right now, so all of the stars were even closer than before. The moon was a beautiful white globe in the sky, waxing past its gibbous stage and heading towards a full moon.

It was glorious. Though it felt a bit disappointing compared to the infinite space I had seen inside Eientei. But I felt fine with just this; staring out into the night from a porch almost felt just as good.

"Hey!"

I sighed. Just when I was getting a bit of quiet compared to the cacophony inside. I looked over my shoulder, and Marisa was there, glass of sake in hand.

"What's up? Something wrong with enjoying the festivities?" Her voice was slurred; she was obviously drunk. Yet she didn't seem to act any different. Weird.

"No, it's not that." I looked back to the stars. "I just wanted a bit of time to myself is all."

"Oh really?" She sat herself down next to me, sipping from her glass. "Well, misery loves company, right?"

"Who said I was miserable?"

"I did! You're hanging out here by yourself. That means you have something on your mind that's bothering you, right?"

"Well, not really…."

"Ah, come on! You can spill it!" She pulled me in closer. "If you won't, then I might have to force you." Her other hand raised the half-filled glass a little higher.

"I don't have anything to spill though," I resisted, trying to pull myself away.

"Seriously? Well, suit yourself, then."

She let go of me, and I reset myself. "I do have something to ask, though."

"Oh? Well, what is it?"

"It's about earlier, back at the river. When I… you know… k-kissed… Nitori-chan... you knew what was going to happen. Why didn't you tell me? About the whole 'pact' thing and all that? If you had, I would never have done something so hasty and idiotic."

"Ah, that's what you're wondering?"

She put down her glass and stared off into the sky.

"I'm not really sure," she laughed. "I just chose not to, I guess!"

"That's it?" I said, incredulous.

"Yeah, I suppose so!" she confirmed, smiling widely.

I sighed. Now that I was getting to know her a little better, I was actually getting slightly used to the fact that Marisa was the "do what I want" kind of person. She'd be hard to deal with, but I didn't really mind it that much. There wasn't anything I could do to really change her.

"You know, it's weird…."

"Eh?" I turned back to the magician. "What is?"

"You didn't seem at all disturbed by the fact I was teasing you about that kiss," she said a little dreamily. She looked ready to fall asleep soon. "Anyone else probably would have completely freaked out on me and refused to do it. Why not you? Are you just a carefree person like Reimu?"

I considered her words. Now that I thought about it a little more, I realized she was right. Despite all her teasing, I had just waved it off and gone ahead with the act anyhow.

"Hm… I guess I was just used to it."

"Huh?"

"As in, used to the teasing. It may have to do with my time with the outside world, but while I was bothered by what you were saying, I didn't care about it. Maybe I just learned to ignore stuff like that back outside."

I smiled a little. "Maybe it was because I had friends like you back outside. People that loved to tease me about various things. I'm not sure; it could be. Because as I listened to your joking, I felt something that was more like annoyance than anything. Maybe that was how I was outside as well."

Silence.

"Cool story, bro!"

"Eh?" Her offhanded answer caught me off guard.

"If that's how you really are," she said, throwing an arm over my shoulder and smiling at me, "then you and I are gonna get along just fine!"

After a quick moment, I responded with a smile. "Yeah. You're probably right."

"Alright!" She rose from her seat. "Well, I'm gonna go explore the shrine for a bit, see if there's anything good for taking home."

"So you're going to pilfer the place?"

"Not pilfer! Just borrow until I die!"

I sighed. Well, there was no stopping her. I waved a hand, indicating that I was just going to ignore it.

And I was alone once again. It didn't last very long.

"Hello, Kaito-san."

A _fwump_ indicated a new guest in my presence, and I turned to see Momiji, her face bright red. Again, she was obviously drunk, yet her voice wasn't slurred. Weird.

"Hello, Momiji-san."

We sat there in silence, just looking up at the stars.

"The view's nice, isn't it?"

"Huh? Yeah, it is." Her personality didn't seem very different either (or at least, not from what I could tell). Maybe she just wasn't that drunk?

"Hey, why were you sneaking around the bushes down by the river before?" I asked, following along with her icebreaker. "If you had just come to greet us normally, you might not have gotten hit by my star bullets."

Her eyes narrowed, as if remembering and contemplating. She spoke only moments later.

"Have you ever been picked up by an oni and thrown at another one before?"

"Huh?"

Her question rang a bell in my head. Hadn't Yuugi mentioned something like that when I met her in Hell?

So Momiji had been that tiangou? Wow….

That must have sucked.

"Well… no, but… I can imagine it. Sort of."

Truthfully, I really could. And I could easily tell that something like that would not be fun.

"Well, I have," she confirmed. "And that was the most terrifying experience I've ever had. On top of being used as a human projectile to start the fight, I had been caught in a bit of the ensuing brawl. The scars left on my body were hardly a problem, but I was so scared that I was left shaking for three days afterward. Even now, I'm still somewhat frightened, and when I was wandering around the river, I heard voices. Now I understand that those voices had been you three, but I was still cautious at that time, so I decided to hide in the bushes for some time before confronting you.

"Oh, I see."

She sighed. "That was a stupid question. Of course a greenhorn to Gensokyo would never have experienced something like that."

"Well, that just proves that I'm still inexperienced, right?"

"I know…. That's the only reason why I haven't _gutted_ you yet."

Whoa. This conversation was taking a rather negative turn.

Without warning, Momiji grabbed me by the collar and yanked me close. "I swear if I ever hear _anything_ about you hurting Nitori, or abusing your power as her master, then I will not care in the slightest that you're a newbie in these parts. She's my friend, I will not hesitate to run you through with my scimitar if you dare touch her. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes… I understand completely!" I uttered shakily. Holy crap; I hadn't expected her to pull the "if you hurt her" card on me. And now that I was getting it, I was terrified, not just because of what she was trying to tell me, but because of what would happen if I didn't listen to her. I was pretty sure she wasn't dropping an empty threat.

She stared menacingly at me for another second. Then she said "Good," let go of me, and walked off.

I breathed a sigh of relief. God, this was going to be harder than I thought.

"Nya~"

"Oof!" Something jumped onto me from behind, securing a pair of strong arms around my neck. I didn't need to look back to know who it was, because I found out a single second later.

"Is something wrong, master?"

I could only think _Oh god._ It was Nitori. And she was drunk too. Geez, was I the only one who had refrained from drinking at all?

"N-no, nothing's wrong," I stuttered slightly. Her question had caught me off guard with the whole 'master' part. And judging from her sudden change in attitude, what with the sudden hug from behind, she was much more smashed than either Marisa or Momiji from before.

"Are you sure? You seem disturbed."

No, really, it's nothing." I definitely wasn't going to tell her about what Momiji had just done to me. One, because it was frightening, and two, because it concerned Nitori.

Her arms unlocked themselves from my neck. "Okay then!"

Gee, her current state reminded me a bit about Koishi.

"You'll… treat me well… right?"

I turned to look her straight in the face (it was hard not to, since she was leaning barely two inches away from me). Her eyes were glittering under the effects of intoxication, though I thought I saw something a bit deeper than that.

I think a small part of my brain fizzled out at that moment since she was so close, and under the effects of alcohol. Her expression was completely serious, meaning that this was a straight question.

My lips flattened out. They weren't smiling, but at least I didn't look like a total fool. "Of course I will. Don't worry."

On instinct, for whatever reason, I reached out a hand and patted her lightly on the head (her hat had gone off to who knows where). "I'll take care of you. I promise."

Between my words and the patting, she smiled again, this time rather goofily. "Okay."

Then, all of a sudden, she yawned loudly. And she dropped so her head and arms were lying in my exposed lap.

A tomato spattered itself over my face in less than three seconds. What the hell was Nitori doing? This was….

She looked up at me with the cheerful face of a young child. "You don't mind if I lay here, do you, master?"

At this point, my brain _really_ started malfunctioning. My tongue tied itself up completely, and my palms started getting sweaty. I couldn't believe Nitori was doing this. And I thought the instance all the way back at Eientei had been bad!

But then, as my brain began rewiring itself into working condition, I thought, what was the problem? I didn't seem to mind this in the slightest. Here was Nitori, the girl I'd met barely a week ago, sleeping on my lap, and yet I was perfectly fine, aside from my sudden lack of motor control.

Maybe Marisa was right; maybe I _was_ a carefree kind of person.

This time, I smiled gently. "No, I don't mind. Go ahead."

I looked away a bit awkwardly; I just hoped she didn't realize what _else_ she was making my body do. And she was lying right on top of it.

She giggled, and lay back down. Her face assumed that of peaceful slumber, aside from the small smile she still wore.

Man, she looked really cute like that….

"Thank you… master…."

I knew she was just drunk, but her saying that still made me feel uncomfortable. Just a little.

With a single hand, I stroked her hair. "You don't have to call me that," I reminded her.

She shifted slightly, getting more comfortable. "Mmh… Kaito… kun…."

* * *

_**Author'sNotes:**_

I swear, this entire chapter was just forcing/begging me to write it. The initial urge was so strong, in fact, that I powered through more than half the chapter (upwards of 3500 words) in only half a day. This chapter would have come up yesterday, if not for the fact that it was 11:00 by the time I was done, and my mom was hounding me about going to bed. The fact that school restarted didn't help my case.

Whatever the case, here it is: the next chapter~

Shocking, no? Momiji wasn't lying about the 'eternal pact' in the slightest; look it up on Wikipedia, and you'll find it for yourself. I actually found that fact quite some time ago when I was doing some research for a different story, and I thought "Huh, that sounds kind of interesting. Might come in handy later..." Cue a time about two or three chapters ago, and I realized the perfect way to incorporate it into the story, and... well yeah, this was the result.

However, Wikipedia also states that "it is said" to be for eternity, so details are, of course, up in the air. I used that as a leverage point to throw in the 'revocable" part of the contract. To some, however, leaving it as eternal serves as a much higher wall to scale (as would be characteristic of love stories and such), and I agree, but that's not what I'm aiming for here, so if that comes off as a disappointment, I apologize, but I'm moving on regardless.

Okay, laying that to rest for now. On to other stuff...

From what I gather, Momiji is supposed to be the "driven guard dog" versus the "innocent puppy" the fandom generally seems to love. Obviously, I went with the "driven guard dog" version. The thing is, I believe I managed to get the "guard dog" part patted down rather flat, but I don't think I got enough of the "drive". Any takes on that? Any words of advice are appreciated.

Also, I'd like to point out a rather blatant shout-out. What can I say? I love Vocaloid songs, and that one is one of my favorites. When I saw the chance, I just had to take it!

No points for being able to guess what I'm talking about.

The next one coming is going to take a rather sharp swerve. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	30. Chapter 30: Warnings Of Danger

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 30: Warnings Of Danger**

I woke up in the morning with a weight on my chest. I couldn't really move.

Huh… kind of reminded me of what happened at Rinnosuke's house. Except this time, there was a light smell. It smelled like… sweet, fresh water.

I lifted my head again, looking out towards the open sky from the porch. Apparently, I had fallen asleep there, since I hadn't really wanted to move Nitori off my lap. Not necessarily because I enjoyed it (though I actually sort of did), but because it was kind of troublesome.

When I looked up, I realized that Nitori was now lying on my chest, fast asleep.

Weird… I didn't remember falling asleep at all. And now my head was throbbing. Maybe I had fallen asleep after….

Wait….

Oh, goddamnit, now I remembered; Suika had forced some sake down my throat last night.

No wonder why I didn't remember at first. Geez, I thought I told her I didn't want any to drink….

Well, whatever. Too late to do anything about it now. I guess this headache was because I had drunk sake, but just not too much. Slight hangover.

Brain still slightly fuzzy, I lifted my arms, motioning to get Nitori off me. It took some time, mostly because starting off, my left arm was pinned under her body, but I eventually managed the task. Once that was done, I sat all the way up.

Nitori made a sound, stirring slightly. But she did not awaken; instead, she just turned herself over so that she was now facing me.

I knew that once she woke up, a huge headache was going to come down on her hard. But that would wait until she actually _did_ wake up.

Still, she did look really cute while asleep.

Then, all of a sudden, an idea popped into my head, and I flushed a deep red. Geez, why was I thinking this so suddenly? Was it because I had been somewhat drunk the night before?

Maybe, but this was….

But then I couldn't really help myself. Perhaps it wouldn't be all that bad. And besides, she was obviously asleep; she wouldn't know anything about my deed anyhow.

I scanned my surroundings quickly. Everywhere, people were asleep. Fairies were curled up on the floor. Kanako had apparently passed out at the table with several empty sake bottles on the table (damn, she could really hold her liquor). Sanae and Suwako were gone; probably gone off to their rooms sometime last night. Marisa and Momiji were leaned up against each other on the wall (next to Marisa was a small bag, no doubt filled with various shrine possessions), and Suika had laid herself down at their feet.

I was the only one awake.

I took a second scan, to make sure no one else at all was stirring.

Despite the fact I knew I was the only one awake, I was still nervous. I shook my head.

_It's nothing big. Don't worry about it; no one else can see you anyways._

That was what I wanted to believe. Maybe it was because my headache was reminding me of the fact I had drunk alcohol the night before, and probably wasn't in very good condition now. That was almost certain, considering what I was thinking of doing.

Then again… it was now or never.

I steeled my nerves for the deed. Quickly, but carefully, I swept aside a lock of Nitori's hair, and pecked her on the cheek.

A bold stroke, yes, but I couldn't help it. Most likely, it was just my brain being an idiot, and still slightly drunk, but this was just too good of an opportunity, and her sleeping face was too cute for me to ignore.

Stupid excuses.

I calmed myself down as much as possible, not wanting to give away my actions with a red face once people started waking up. I was _never _doing that ever again.

_Well, I've been through a lot with her… is there anything wrong with a tiny display of affection?_

That was what I wanted to believe too.

"Then why don't you just believe it?"

I wasn't surprised, for whatever reason. Or if I was, it was a dull reaction. I looked up.

Yukari was in the ceiling. Again.

"Good morning, Yukari-sama," I said in an exhausted fasion. "What brings you here?"

"You do. I'm here to pick you up."

"Pick me up? What do you mean?"

"There's trouble brewing, and you're going to help."

"What? So suddenly? Don't I get to at least say goodbye to everyone here?"

"Don't worry; I've already left a note explaining your departure."

"You have?"

"Wait a moment." A pause. "Now I have!"

I looked behind me, at the table, and I noticed a small white envelope sitting in the middle of the table.

"So that's it then?" I asked dully. I still didn't want to go; I wanted to at least say goodbye, and a note seemed rather stupid compared to doing so in person.

"That's right! Now, I can't have you being drunk while we're at it, so…."

She waved a hand that popped out of a tiny portal to her left. All of a sudden, my mind felt something wash over it, and I was instantly refreshed. My headache went away, and I didn't feel so dull anymore.

And I felt _insanely_ bad about what I had done. How could I take advantage of Nitori sleeping like that? Momiji would have killed me if she had seen me!

"Feeling better?" Yukari asked, smiling knowingly at me.

"Er… better and worse at the same time," I answered truthfully.

"Well, I suppose that will do for now. Come along; we don't want Momiji finding out, do we?"

I flinched at that. Geez, she knew. Did crossing boundaries mean she could look into other people's thoughts too?

If that was the case, then it would be better to stay on her good side, or I'd have the entire Youkai Mountain guard on me in a matter of seconds.

"Well, are you coming or not?"

I turned a bit red, remembering what I had done. "Y-yes."

"Then let's go!"

I felt a sudden yank on my arm, and I was dragged into a dark void.

* * *

"Whoa…."

Every other time I'd been pulled into a portal by Yukari, it had been a quick flash of black, and then I was spat back out into whatever location she had ported me off to. This was the first time I had ever actually stood _inside_ the portal and gotten a good look around. Normally, one would expect a portal leading into black nothingness to be completely empty.

That was definitely not the case here.

Everywhere, it was closer to a midnight blue than actual black, with tinges of what may have been very deep purple. And there were eyes. Hundreds of them, everywhere, of varying shape and size. Every single one was bearing down on me at once, in an infinite tunnel of endless gazes.

It was impossible to not feel paranoid.

"Frightening, isn't it?"

I shook off a bit of my mounting paranoia, just enough to look up and see Yukari sitting on a boundary hammock (a portal inside a portal? How did that make sense?).

"Oh… yeah…."

I glanced around nervously. "What's with all the eyes?"

"Ah, these? Their my personal surveillance system. With them, I can observe every corner of Gensokyo at my own leisure. I usually keep one or two eyes on you, but sometimes, I lose track of you."

"How would you lose track of me with so many eyes?"

"I get distracted sometimes!"

I was somewhat curious about what she would get distracted by, but I thought that wasn't my place to ask.

"Okay then, so where am I supposed to be going?" I asked straight off.

"You're going back to the Hakurei shrine."

"So something's wrong at the shrine?"

"Not really. Not yet, at least."

"Huh?"

She smiled enigmatically. "You'll find out soon enough."

I raised an eyebrow. That made little sense. Shouldn't she tell me a little more about whatever trouble was going on if she wanted me to help?

I sighed. I doubted that she would tell me even if I asked, so there wasn't much of a point in that. "Okay, fine, so you're going to drop me off there, right?"

"That's correct."

She brought out her fan again. "The trouble hasn't quite started yet, by the way. It's coming to the shrine now; it should be there in two minutes and twenty-seven seconds after I leave you at the shrine."

"Oh. Okay then."

She waved her free hand, and I began to fall once more.

_Boomph!_

"Gyaaah!"

Holy crap!

For several seconds, there was confusion, and I was lost in a tangle of limbs and bed sheets. What the hell? Where in the world had….

Suddenly, I felt empty air, and I fell right off the bed. The floor was surprisingly soft, but that didn't make any difference to the pain I felt hitting it with all my weight going into my right arm.

"Ah!" I cried out when I hit the floor. It hurt, but it didn't seem like my arm was broken, and I realized it was a chance to move and re-gather my thoughts. As painlessly as possible, I used my hands to pull me away from the bed.

God, what the hell had that been? I knew that I was supposed to be at the shrine, but that didn't make much of a difference if I had no idea what had caused that landing to screw up so horribly!

I opened up my eyes, which had been shut in response to the sudden pain.

There was Reimu on the bed, half-wrapped in a bed sheet.

And she was wearing nothing but that bandage around her chest, and bloomers.

Ah, crap.

I sobered up immediately, and scrambled to get up. "S-sorry, Reimu-chan! I-I'll get out right away!"

My hands and feet slipped a couple times as I tried to find my way out of the room, but I eventually managed the task, and was safely behind a wall.

"W-wh-where did you come from?" came an indignant shout from behind the wall.

"I-I'm sorry!" I apologized. "Yukari-sama dropped me off here."

"Ah, no wonder!"

Huh… seemed like Reimu was used to that kind of thing happening. Did Yukari really like picking on Reimu that much? Or rather, did she just like teasing people in general?

"W-whatever!" Reimu called out.

I sighed. Geez, maybe Yukari just liked messing with people in general.

With that over with, I walked out into the main room. It was relatively clean at the moment, with only the table in the center, and the broom lying right next to it.

I walked outside to inspect the outer premises. She really had been working since that time with the donation; a Temizu basin was out, just like she had said, and the wall to my right had several lines of _omikuji_ tied to it. Obviously, more people had been coming to the shrine (gee, my favor actually managed to work). I was sure that the donation box was actually beginning to fill up, and Reimu was gaining steady revenue due to the _omamori_ alongside the _omikuji_.

Everything around the shrine seemed to be fine. What could possibly be going wrong around here?

I picked up the broom, walked onto the porch of the shrine, and began sweeping a bit. Despite Yukari's involvement, I still felt sort of bad for both waking up Reimu and seeing her in such an indecent state.

After only about twenty seconds of that, I felt something hit me. Not physically, really, but something more mental. It felt like it was trying to touch my aura.

I looked out onto the stone pathway leading away and past the gate.

Someone was coming up to the shrine.

The feeling grew even stronger before I even began to hear the voice.

"…imu! Reimu!"

Someone was calling for Reimu.

Then whoever or whatever was calling for her came up over the edge of the pathway leading down the hill.

And it was a thundercloud.

Actually, it only vaguely resembled a thundercloud. While it looked insubstantial enough to be a cloud, it was a bright pink, and had humanoid features. As it drew closer and closer (apparently, the powerful aura was from the cloud), I noticed that it had the face of a rather old, bald man, and the wisp of a ghost or genie in place of legs. The body of the cloud-man, however, looked extremely buff, and it looked like he could take down something bigger than a house. I immediately noted that that cloud was not someone I should mess with.

In the hands of the old cloud was a teenaged girl, from the looks of it. She wore a strange dark blue headdress like that of a nun, hanging slightly over a white dress with blue trim. Both of them looked somewhat tattered. A gold ring that was at least the size of a human head was in her right hand.

Once a larger part of the distance down the path was closed, the teenager hopped off the hands of the cloud. Immediately afterward, the cloud morphed, shrinking and losing substantiality until it really looked like nothing more than a pinkish red cloud hanging around the shoulders of the girl, with only its face visible over her left shoulder.

Wow. Cool cloud.

The girl ran up to the shrine with all speed. "Where's Reimu-san?"

I pointed a thumb inside. "She just woke up and… I think she's getting dressed. Why? Is something wrong?"

"I require a shrine maiden's assistance. One of my friends is gravely ill. We believe she has been cursed by something."

"Really?"

I turned in surprise to see Reimu was coming out the doorway, surrounded by a swirl of red and white (a two-colored aura? Didn't see that coming). She sure changed fast.

"Who's sick, Ichirin-san?"

"It's Nazrin," the girl named Ichirin explained. "We don't know what's wrong with her."

"Not even Byakuren-sama managed to do anything?"

"No."

"Then bring her in. I don't know what I'll be able to do, but I'll see."

The nun bowed. "Thank you. I'll bring them here as fast as I can!"

* * *

"So who are you?"

"Oh, sorry, I never introduced myself. My name's Kaito. I was brought here to Gensokyo by Yukari-sama a little over a week ago."

"Oh, so you were the one that witch was talking about."

"You mean Marisa-san?"

"Yeah. She visited our temple one day and told us about someone under your name. We had no idea who she was talking about, though, so it didn't really mean much to us."

"Well, it's only natural…."

A total of four other people aside from Ichirin had come to the shrine, all riding on the cloud's – whose name was Unzan – shoulders. Two of them were inside a separate room with Reimu; the ones named Byakuren and Nazrin. The other two were here with me in the main room.

One of them went by the name of Minamitsu Murasa. She looked like a sailor, wearing the trademark collared shirt, skirt, and ribbon. A sailor's cap went over short black hair. In one hand was a ladle much like the one used for Reimu's Temizu basin, and strapped over her back was a really big anchor. I was going to ask how she could carry that thing around so easily, until I realized she had an aura of teal green that smelled of the deep sea, floated off the ground naturally, and when she actually touched the floor, she phased right through it like she wasn't even there. It took some time for me to process this, but I eventually managed to work out the answer; she was a ghost.

She certainly didn't look like a ghost.

The second person, who had tiger-striped orange-yellow hair, was Shou Toramaru. Her dress was much stranger, being red around her upper torso, tiger-printed at the abdomen, and going down from red to orange towards the bottom, along with long white sleeves. A massive white cloth circle floated around her much like the rope with Kanako. In her left hand was a giant spear taller than I was, and a small glowing pagoda ornament was in her right, shining a dull blue-white compared to the orange-yellow aura around her.

And she looked nervous beyond belief.

While it was true that both Ichirin and Minamitsu were anxious about Nazrin's state, Shou seemed to be taking it much more heavily than either of them. It made me wonder why, but while I wanted to ask, I thought it wasn't really up to me to ask. That job should be left to her friends.

Except that the two of them weren't really doing anything. Sure, maybe they noticed how off Shou seemed, but they weren't acting on it for some reason, as if they already knew, and didn't want to start up the conversation again. But they did glance over at her a couple times (Shou had chosen to exclude herself from the conversation, sitting on the porch while the three of us were at the table), and each time, I saw a flash of concern and a bit of confusion. Did they not know what was going on either?

I only had a slight inkling as to the possibility of what had happened. The inkling, however, only related to Nazrin. When the group had first brought her into the shrine, I had to leave the room almost immediately. The reason was because a deep, horrid smell had entered the room along with Nazrin.

She had been surrounded by a black aura.

The instant I saw – and smelled – the aura, I immediately knew that the situation would head downhill very, very fast if nothing was done, or could be done. I was afraid it would turn out the same way as Mystia and Medicine; devilish intent and a ravenous hunger for human flesh. Perhaps it was just out of self-preservation, but I wanted her to get better _fast._

And it possibly had something to do with Shou.

Several questions ran through my head even as I talked with Ichirin and Minamitsu; what was Shou's relation to Nazrin? Did that have anything to do with why Nazrin was like this? Was Shou even related to the problem in the first place? I went on and on, thinking of the possibilities. And all of them looked just as likely as every other one. The only way we would make any progress would be to ask Shou herself.

Unfortunately, of course, she didn't seem to be in much of a mood for talking.

Too bad it wouldn't be very prudent of us to leave that hanging. One of us would have to talk with her eventually; the sooner the better.

And I had a nagging feeling that it would be me.

After a few more moments of listening to the chatter between the nun and the sailor, I sighed quietly to myself. "Excuse me, you two," I said, standing up from the table.

They took notice, but didn't say anything. If anything, the looks they gave me were either warnings of the possibilities of trying to tackle this problem solo, or pleadings for me to help. I really had no clue which one they were.

In a semi-relaxed fashion (it was virtually impossible to fully relax, given the situation), I walked out onto the porch of the shrine, coming to a stop at the edge of the first step, next to where Shou was sitting, staring at the floor. The aroma I got from her smelled of oranges.

When I stopped, Shou turned slightly to see my feet. Then she went right back to staring at the floor.

_Man, this must be really getting to her…._

I sat myself down next to her. I took the lack of a response to mean that she didn't mind my sitting there, or she was too distracted to care anyways.

For a few moments, I just sat there, feeling her presence. It wasn't in a good way; her aura seemed to be acting up in accordance to her emotional state (I made a slight note to remember that any time I was around someone whose aura I could see), and at the moment, it was erratic and unstable. She was obviously distressed.

"So… you're _really_ worried about her, aren't you?"

"Huh?" She seemed to perk up at that. Then she sank back. "Oh… yeah…."

I felt ready to hit myself. That was such a stupid question to ask, it wasn't even funny. I had to cut to the chase.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"No… I wish I did…."

Silence.

"Would it happen to have anything to do with you?"

"Eh?"

That got a reaction; her eyes glowed with disbelief as she looked at me.

"I mean, look at you," I continued, a bit uneasy. These were murky waters, and it was dangerous for me to wander around in them. "You're taking this a lot harder than either Ichirin-san or Minamitsu-san. That's why I wanted to ask; did this have anything to do with you in particular?"

I did my best to refrain from grimacing as I saw the pain in her eyes. This was not going to be easy.

But all of a sudden, Shou smiled. "No, it doesn't. I'm just… really worried about Nazrin is all."

She kept that up for a short while.

I was left in confusion. What was she doing putting on a smile like that?

I made that clear. "You know, you're a really bad liar."

"What?" Her smile broke. Shattered into a hundred pieces. I felt kind of bad for having to do that.

"That's not it, is it? You're trying to lie to me. You have something to do with this, don't you?"

The tiger blinked at me, unbelieving.

Then she looked down back at the ground, her grim face back up. "Yes. I do. And… it's something that is unforgiveable…."

I just looked at her with concern. I knew that I was walking in really hot water. I couldn't just ignore it, but I knew that asking would be dangerous. I didn't want to leave Shou unable to talk to anyone because of it. But what was I supposed to ask?

"Everybody!"

The sudden voice saved me. Both of us turned at once. At the end of the room, next to the hall leading inside, stood a woman with long brown hair, wearing a frilly white dress underneath a strange blue coat that had crossing cloth strips over the front. In one hand was a pair of short rainbow rods, and surrounding the rods was an obscenely large aura of rainbow to match. Byakuren.

All four of us rushed to her. Ichirin and Minamitsu instantly began bombarding her with questions.

"So? Did you do it?"

"Is she okay?"

Byakuren's grim face told us all we needed to know. "I'm sorry… Not even Reimu-san was able to do anything about Nazrin's condition."

I stared in disbelief. No way… not even Reimu could help?

Three faces fell. I looked to my right.

Shou looked like she was about to cry.

The most obvious thought flashed across my mind.

_I have to do something._

I placed a single hand on Shou's shoulder. She looked at me, to find a pair of eyes that were comforting, but solid, as if to say _I'll do something about this._

"Byakuren-sama!"

"Hm?"

"Take me to see Nazrin-san."

* * *

I did my best not to feel nauseous. It was difficult, considering the strength of the smell, but I hung on.

The girl, Nazrin, was very mouse-like, and that wasn't just counting the mouse ears sprouting from under dark gray hair. The rest of her clothes were of a similar color, a light gray gold-lined cape worn over a deep gray dress. The only parts of her person that weren't dark in shade were the sleeves of her dress, which were a light pink. Crossed behind her back were two large dowsing rods, the longer ends almost as long as she was tall. The ends of the rods were shaped like letters, indicating the four cardinal directions of a compass.

I managed to take all that in while ignoring the black aura surrounding her.

Now that I was getting a closer look, the aura was much more than just black; a layer of gray lay just underneath it. And even as I watched, it looked like the darkness was eating, consuming the gray. It was like the darkness was eating at her very soul.

It was horrifying.

"Urk…" I grunted quietly. "I swear, this aura is going to make me throw up."

"Aura? You mean you can see that too?"

"Huh?" I gave an odd look to Byakuren. "You mean… you can see what's going on with Nazrin-san?"

She nodded sternly.

"What are you two talking about?"

Oops. I'd forgotten Reimu was still in the room.

I told her the short story about what Yukari had told me that night in Eientei. During the whole explanation, I couldn't take my eyes off Nazrin. I knew that with each passing second, we were losing a little more of her.

"I never thought I'd ever find another person who could see auras like I could," Byakuren piped up at the end of my lecture. "But your power seems to be stronger han mine; why did you say you were going to throw up?"

I winced a bit as I was reminded. "Apparently, I can 'see' them to the point where I get a distinct smell from it too. And this… this just smells _horrendous_."

"Have you ever seen this before?"

"I have. Twice. Technically three times, since the first case involved two people. The first two, I couldn't even see auras physically yet; I only got the feeling they were there. Even if it was in my mind's eye, the aura was like poison. Then… the third case, I actually _smelled_ it. And it was the same as this one now. I don't know what it is, but… whatever it is, it's horrid. Not like I need to say that."

I looked forlornly at the unconscious Nazrin.

I felt so useless, not being able to do anything other than see what was happening to her.

"_キャプチャ暗闇の中の危険を生じさせたその精神！ __Dream Sign: Demon Binding Array!"_

The declaration and the sound of a breaking card brought me back to reality. Reimu had been the one to say that. Her aura had grown immense – at least two or three times its normal size. A strong smell overpowered the scent of Nazrin's black aura, and I was caught in a wave of smells that was best described as a mixture of sweet apples and sunlight.

She raised her gohei (I learned that her long wooden stick with paper attached to it was called that, and Sanae's one was the same), spun it above her, and planted it on the floor with a loud _clack_. The fragments of her card streamed into her gohei and flowed into the ground. A long white line drew itself, ending underneath Nazrin's body.

A split second after that happened, a huge blue magic field sprung out, encircling the mouse.

Reimu didn't rise after this; instead, she seemed to be focusing even more. The tether between her gohei and the field didn't shrink away.

Then, the field began to shrink. Or not shrink; it was becoming more defined. More form-fitting. It adapted to Nazrin's shape. And the light began to die, falling away until it seemed to be holding Nazrin inside a large, human-shaped bubble.

Whoa….

"There, that should do it," Reimu breathed once the whole thing was over. "I don't know how much good it'll do, but if this aura is really as bad as you say it is, then maybe holding it for a little while might help."

Wow. Genius move.

And aside from the obvious reasons….

I breathed deeply, and sighed with content. The smell was gone. "Nice job there, Reimu-chan."

"Thank you. Now we just have to figure out what to do with this aura you two were talking about. But we've tried everything we could."

"Have you tried looking _inside_ her?"

Three different reactions came to those words.

"Who's saying that?" Byakuren asked, confused.

"Where did that come from?" Reimu wondered, equally so.

"It's about time you showed up," I sighed, exasperated.

I looked up at the ceiling. Byakuren and Reimu followed my gaze.

"Yukari!" the two of them blurted out in surprise.

The smiling boundary youkai dropped out of her portal, landing at the feet of the unconscious Nazrin.

"Now, is that any way to greet a friend?" she teased, smiling at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Sorry, but you sort of always pop in at moments like these."

"So true," she agreed. "But anyways, the problem with little Nazrin here is _inside_ her, not outside. You can't get rid of this darkness from where you are now."

"Then how are we supposed to help?" I asked.

"That's very simple."

She walked over to Nazrin's side, sitting down. She gestured with a finger, telling me to come over.

I raised an eyebrow. But I obeyed. Now that I was at a closer proximity, I could smell… something. I couldn't tell what it was at all. It felt like a mixture of multiple odors at once. So many, that they seemed to cancel each other out. They were still _there_, but I couldn't tell them apart.

Yukari had a hand on Nazrin's forehead. When I was close enough, she touched mine with a single finger.

"Don't blink!"

"Why?"

She didn't hear me.

I wasn't in the Hakurei shrine anymore.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

*Capture the darkness that endangers the spirit!

This chapter was... awkward, for some reason. When I got around to the part with Shou, I sort of... well, I kinda died there for whatever reason. It took some time, but I managed to power through it eventually.

But anyways, this was a _very_ interesting chapter to write. Honestly, the UFO crew is probably second to me after the SDM crew (seriously, I just love them all to death!).

But not everything is as it seems. Not every treasure a person attracts is real. It can be cursed. That's what's happening to Nazrin now. But what treasure did she find exactly? That's up to you to find out in a later chapter. Most likely the next one, I might add.

By the way, I'm pretty sure this is a very easy and very stupid question, but can anyone guess where Kaito's supposed to be now? No points or cookies for getting it right though; I just wanted to ask~

Hope you enjoyed this chapter~ I'll get the next one out as soon as I possibly can!


	31. Chapter 31: Curses Of The Heart

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 31: The Curse Of Hearts**

An endless plain. Green grass and various spring flowers blossoming everywhere. The sky was completely devoid of clouds, and the sun was comfortable.

What the heck?

"Where am I?" I wondered aloud, glancing left and right. The field looked like it went off into the horizon and just kept going, with no regard for distance or anything. It was a little hard to look at it and not feel at least a little agoraphobic. It was just so… empty.

"Hey, Yukari-sama!"

"You don't have to be so loud."

I spun a full one-eighty, and the youkai was there, standing just outside a portal large enough for someone put their head against and see through it. It took a quick moment for me to realize that her aura was gone.

"Sorry about that. Where am I?" I had a vague idea about where I was supposed to be, since she had been posing as a pseudo-boundary between Nazrin and I.

"You're inside Nazrin's mind," she said simply. "The only way you're going to solve this problem if you help rid the darkness within her."

"But why did you have to pick me?" I was getting a bit tired of being picked up and moved around like a playing piece on a board. The fact Yukari was the chessmaster moving _me_ around didn't make me feel any better. "Couldn't you have chosen someone better, like Byakuren-sama, or Shou-san?"

"I could have," Yukari agreed. "But this is a problem I need _you_ to familiarize with."

"But aside from this black aura that's been effecting people, what's the problem?" This couldn't have been a coincidence. Something much bigger was behind this, and Yukari seemed to know.

"You'll find out eventually," she said playfully, dodging the question entirely.

"Now anyways," she continued, before I could interrupt. "Fly up a good distance to see what you need."

I sighed, but obeyed anyways. Since I was here now, I didn't see much of a reason to not help.

The moment I took off, it was different. It wasn't like all the other times I'd flown, except for maybe the very first time I tried, when I was trying to catch Patchouli; it was completely effortless. It felt like I had become an absolute master of the sky, and taking flight was almost easier than breathing.

"Whoa…." What was going on here? I went for a test run; a quick loop, a somersault flip, and several rapid spins in place. I couldn't believe how insanely natural it felt. When I stopped, I felt a little dizzy, but a bit giddy at the same time. This was just incredible!

"The laws of normality hold little sway over the mind, Kaito. Your abilities from the outside are a farcry from what you're able to do in here."

"Really? Then…."

I landed lightly, and held out my fist, pointing it in no direction in particular. I focused for a second….

The blade exploded.

Almost very literally. It came out so fast and strong that it caught me off guard, nearly knocking me off balance. Once I was done stopping myself from falling over, I examined the blade.

"Holy crap…."

The energy sprouting from my fist was at least three times its normal length, matching that of a real longsword, and actually had a very well-defined shape instead of the usual pyramid fountain. The back was razor-edged, while the main blade was smooth and streamlined.

My eyes widened in delight as I gave it a couple practice swings. One of them scored the ground. In a second after doing so, the small cut patched itself up instantly, brand new overgrowth and flowers smoothing over the accidental cut.

I took note of that, and shut off the blade. This time, I crouched a bit, drawing back my hands. When I pushed them forward, an immense burst of energy came pouring out, the stars just a little bit larger than their normal size. On top of that, I shot out at least ten to twelve stars.

"Wow…" I breathed. "This is amazing!"

"Now now, don't get carried away," Yukari reminded. "You still have something to do here."

"Oh, yeah, right. Sorry about that."

I took flight once more, heading as far up as I could without feeling lightheaded. Once I got there, I spun around slowly, taking in the edges of the horizon.

And I saw it, at the very border where the sky and earth met. It was sort of small, but it was growing bigger.

A little red dot all the way at the end of nowhere.

"You see it, don't you?" Yukari called up to me.

"Yeah. Some kind of red dot. And I think it's getting bigger or something. Or maybe closer."

"That's what you need to head for. You better be careful; there's powerful magic going on there."

"Yeah, I figured as much. I will."

"One moment! Come down here first."

I actively dived back down, coming to a stop about a foot off the ground. "What is it?"

"Just so you know," she instructed, pulling out her fan. "I'm not going to be able to help you with this."

"And why not?"

"You may know me to be a powerful youkai, but it takes quite a bit of energy to maintain a portal like this." She gestured to the small hole in space right next to her. "It may not look like much, but this is the door that's keeping you in Nazrin's mind. If I stray too far from it, then your soul will-"

"My soul?"

"Yes. This is your soul inside Nazrin right now, and if this portal gets closed, then you will be cut off from your body and rendered unable to return. I cannot move too far from the portal, or my energy will be taxed to the point where it will be forced to close. If you wish, then I can bring someone else in to help, but I myself cannot go."

"Oh."

This was… sort of bad. An interesting point, to be sure, but I couldn't really ask Yukari to do anything for me if she was already doing so much. One person was enough, wasn't it?

Well, I hoped so.

"Alright, thanks for the information," I said. "I'll try to be careful."

I took off, waving goodbye.

* * *

_Geez, this plain really _does_ run on forever, doesn't it?_

From where I was, it certainly looked that way. I didn't bother to keep track of how long it'd been since I first came in, but I guessed it to only be a few minutes or so. I wasn't flying very fast, but even without very much speed put into it, flight in a place like this felt a bit faster than normal anyhow.

And besides, the red sky was getting closer and closer all the while.

I felt like I was back inside my dream back in Eientei. The sky was turning a very deep scarlet red. As if to match it like a mirror, the ground was following it, dying away and becoming a dead brown color. It was like the sky and earth were slowly becoming infected by a virus. A virus that was spreading out, claiming everything and anything it could.

On top of that, I could see that it seemed to be coming from a single point. It took a little while to see it, but I eventually noticed that there was a single point that was far ahead of the rest. Like a stake was being driven into the world itself, the destruction trailed after a lone leader.

_Guess I'll find out who that's supposed to be in a little while._

Now I poured on the juice, accelerating far beyond my usual speeds. I had to get to the leader as soon as possible, or Nazrin was a goner.

* * *

_This… is going to be hard as hell…._

I'd flown all the way so that I was a little behind the black destruction point, and I had dropped as far as I dared to, hoping that I wasn't noticed or spotted. The point wasn't just a single person; it was two, surrounded by a humongous crowd of black milling around their feet. Whatever that stuff was, I wasn't sure I wanted to find out, but the main problem was the two people.

There were two Nazrins.

As stupid and impossible as it looked when I first identified the two, I couldn't deny that both people in the middle of the crowd were Nazrin. They had the same gray hair, ears, and clothing as the one I saw outside. The main difference was that the one heading the group seemed normal, while the one trailing behind had her arms bound behind her back by black coils.

What was going on?

I dropped a little in altitude, trying to get a better look at the pair.

Then, all of a sudden, the entire group stopped. I paused. Crap, had they seen me?

The Nazrin in front turned to face the other. I noticed that there was a black string wrapped a couple times around her right hand.

And another thing; when the group stopped, so did the infection. The V-shape was slowly adapting into a single flat line right where the group had stopped.

It looked like the front Nazrin was speaking. Either the other one was choosing not to speak, or saying some things that made the first one happy, because the coil-Nazrin seemed rather happy, stepping closer in a strangely devious fashion.

Then the bound-Nazrin looked up, and a flash of anger streaked across the coil-Nazrin's face. She yanked her hand backwards, and the bound-Nazrin fell to her knees.

So it was some sort of collar or tether?

Then the coil-Nazrin began stomping on the bound-Nazrin's head.

Shoot!

I no longer cared about the fact that there was two of her; Nazrin was being hurt, and I had to help somehow.

The instant my mind was made up, I started diving for them. I pulled one hand back, preparing for a water volley, before making my presence known.

"_Hey!"_

The coil-Nazrin looked up in shock, and I unleashed my attack. The water spawned was much denser, and each bullet had to be at least twice their normal size.

The volley rained down on the crowd with the potency of a waterfall. I had aimed for the face, and many of the bullets found their mark. The ones that didn't get to my target landed with explosive effects on the black crowd, leaving holes in it. Only one hit the bound-Nazrin, and she didn't seem fazed by it at all.

My energy blade was out once again. In a single mighty motion, I readied for a slash.

"Hyaaaah!"

I landed feet first, and the sword was brought down with thundering force. The blade sank into the floor, cutting a perfectly clean line into the black crowd and the cracked dirt beneath.

Coil-Nazrin had managed to dodge away, shocked by the appearance of some random guy raining destruction from the sky. But I still wasn't done. I pushed as much power as I could into my foot, and stomped the floor.

BA-KOOM!

All I really saw was an explosion. But in the second before my projectile hit home, I saw that the wave, which was usually no taller than knee high, seemed to have grown to be twice as large as Rin's wheelbarrow. The explosion was no different, looking like it was large enough to consume someone around my own size. The coil-Nazrin didn't stand a chance; she was blown no less than ten to fifteen meters back.

Damn. Being inside someone's mind was _awesome!_

I turned to the bound-Nazrin, who was staring at me with just as much surprise as the one I had managed to scare the living hell out of. I realized that she actually had a large strip of black encircling her head, sealing her mouth shut. No wonder why that other Nazrin had looked so happy; this one couldn't say anything back.

"Hang on tight!" I pulled her up, swept her into my arms, and jumped off before the black crowd could do anything to stop me.

"Are you alright?" I asked once we were a good distance into the air.

Wide eyes looked back at me. And they nodded.

"Okay, that's good. Don't worry; I'm going off to see a friend. Here, let me cut you free."

After a few very careful readjustments, I managed to make it so Nazrin was leaning in on my shoulder, arms facing outward, and I was holding her in one arm. I raised two fingers with my opposing hand and channeled a bit of energy.

A long, thin spout nearly half a meter long came out.

"Whoa… um, maybe we should wait until we see my friend."

* * *

"Couldn't you have taken care of this yourself?"

"I could have tried, but I didn't want to wind up slicing Nazrin-san to pieces."

"Fair enough. Let her down."

I pulled Nazrin off my shoulder and carefully sat her on the ground.

"Now, let's see…."

After a couple seconds, Yukari waved a hand. Several tiny boundaries spawned at once, encircling and effectively cutting every single bond at once. One of them even managed to slice off the darkness over Nazrin's mouth without giving the slightest scratch.

Once they were cut, the binds vanished, as if they had never existed.

I sighed in relief. "Nice one, Yukari-sama. If I had tried that myself, I definitely would have wound up hurting Nazrin-san."

"Well, of course!" she laughed. "It's easy for someone like me."

I hadn't stopped flying until we'd gotten all the way back to the portal, away from all that destruction. Yukari asked me about what had happened, treating it like it was supposed to be a scouting mission. I didn't tell her everything quite yet, since it had felt more like a rescue mission than anything. But once that was done, I explained everything I hadn't told her at first.

"Well, this is quite bad," Yukari mused. "I'd known it to be a terrible situation, but I hadn't expected it to get quite this bad."

"How did you get caught by that shadow thing anyways?" I asked Nazrin. "And do you have any idea why it looks like you?"

The little mouse stood. It wasn't saying very much, since even with her somewhat large mouse ears, she only came up to maybe my neck. "When I was fighting against that shadow some time ago, it had nearly faltered due to a sudden burst of energy catching it and stopping it from moving."

That had to have been Reimu's spell card.

"But then," she continued. "Just before I was about to destroy it, a sudden flux of new energy caused the shadow's cage to fall apart, and it was able to surprise and overpower me. Whatever happened must have been huge in order to break a cage like that."

"Ah, that would be my fault," Yukari piped up, giving an apologetic look. "In the process of transferring Kaito's soul into your mind, I accidentally broke Reimu's _Demon Binding Array_ spell card."

"You transferred this boy's soul in here?"

"That's correct. There's a lot more than that though, so you may want to listen well…."

As quickly as possible, Yukari and I explained the situation we were in, alongside an introduction of who I was.

"Well, I'm thankful you were able to help out," Nazrin said, bowing, once the full account was given. "If the two of you didn't come to my rescue, I'd most likely have been eaten alive in a matter of minutes."

"Then what should we do now?" I asked. "How are we supposed to kill that shadow of you? And, what happened to your dowsing rods?"

"That shadow took them from me. You saw that huge crowd of black, right? Those were mice."

"Mice?" I spoke with disbelief. That many? No way.

"Yes. Those dowsing rods allow me to control other mice. Without them, my shadow has complete control over my army. This is going to be hard if I can't fight her with them…."

The little dowser general looked at me with a blank expression. "Looks like I'll have to leave most of the fighting to you."

"That's fine," I assured. "Anything to get this darkness out of you."

She nodded. "Then we don't have any time to waste. Let's go!"

"Wait!"

She turned back. "What is it? Make this fast."

"Something's been bothering me," I told her. "I don't know if I've found out enough to say this… but that shadow is supposed to be a darker embodiment of you, right?"

"Yes. What about it?"

"Well… they say that darkness like this usually lurks in every heart, but doesn't it only take a form if a person has been overcome by darkness?"

It sounded pretty stupid coming out of my mouth, but it was what seemed to make the most sense to me. Maybe it was my bookish attitude kicking in again, supplying an idea straight from a novel, but I couldn't think of anything else that fit better. I supposed that if I fit it into Mystia's and Medicine's case, it could probably make sense as well.

"So… you're saying that I was overcome by my darker side?" Nazrin confirmed.

"I guess you could say that, yeah."

"Oh, very good, Kaito!" Yukari cheered, clapping her hands. "Reading so many books and playing so many games has really done you good."

"Um… okay." That didn't really make much sense….

"Are you kidding me?"

I snapped back to Nazrin at that. What?

She was eyeing me disapprovingly. "The only person I've ever heard say something dumber than that was Minamitsu, and she was drunk at the time. This doesn't have anything to do with anyone else, okay? It's just some darkness trying to take over my body, and whatever is making it do this, they're going to pay. Come on!"

And with that, the mouse turned and began walking away again.

But something struck me as odd. I cocked my head to the side, and my eyes narrowed. "Wait a moment."

Nazrin groaned in exasperation. "I told you already, we don't have time for this."

I ignored that. "Since when did I say this had to do with anyone?"

Surprise flashed between her eyes.

That denial was far too specific to mean nothing at all. Why had she said that? This had to involve someone but who….

I put two and two together.

"This has to do with Shou-san, doesn't it?"

Something else filled Nazrin's eyes now. It seemed to be caught between horror, and embarrassment.

But even as fire flooded her pale cheeks, her expression leveled out, doing its best to remain in control. "I… I have no idea what you're talking about!"

And yet she still denied it. This wasn't going to be easy. If we were going to help her, we had to know what the problem was.

Then I came up with an idea.

I sighed. "Fine, alright. I'm sorry. Come on, we should get going. Wish us luck, Yukari-sama."

"Of course!"

I nodded at the tiny commander, and began to follow.

"Hey, wait!" I called out in mock surprise, and turned back to the boundary youkai. "Yukari-sama, didn't you say something about being able to bring another person in here if we needed help?"

"Yes, I did," she agreed. "What about it?"

"I want you to bring someone in. We might need more back-up for the upcoming battle."

She saw the look in my eye. The look that Nazrin couldn't see since my back was turned. And I was sure that Yukari understood.

"Very well then," she followed along. "Who should it be?"

"I'm not sure," I half-lied. This was still only speculation, and I needed confirmation.

"Hey, Nazrin-san."

"Hm?"

"Who should we bring in?"

"How should I know?" she asked bluntly, looking pointedly away.

"Well, I was wondering if you'd want to bring in someone from your crew to help out."

She stared at me with a critical look, as if examining me, trying to break down my reason for doing this.

I raised my hands defensively, trying to not give anything away.

And it seemed to work. Nazrin looked away again. "Fine. Anyone but Shou will be okay by me."

That was it.

I sighed in fake exasperation, muttering "Making me have to choose. Alright then."

I turned back to Yukari, who was grinning widely. She definitely knew what was going to happen.

I made my choice loud and clear, making sure Nazrin could hear, even if she had ear plugs.

"Bring Shou-san in here."

I could have sworn that Nazrin's surprise came out in the loudest gasp in the world. Good thing no one but Yukari and I were around.

"W-what are you doing?" Nazrin pleaded, shaking my arm. "I told you to bring anyone _but_ her!"

"I know that," I said a bit bluntly. "That's why I'm asking for her."

"What?" Every part of her face was written with horror and mortification.

"You wouldn't have asked for something like that if Shou-san didn't have anything to do with this. That's why I'm asking Yukari-sama to bring her in."

"But Shou has nothing to do with this!"

"She has _everything_ to do with this," I denied.

"No she doesn't you idiot!" she shouted, shoving me.

What the hell was wrong with Nazrin? What would she accomplish, rejecting Shou like this?

It sparked a bit of annoyance in me, and I made it obvious.

"This problem isn't going to solve itself if you just keep running away like this. Both you and Shou-san have to work it out between yourselves.

"You weren't conscious, so you didn't see, but… when I was still outside, when everyone was waiting to see if Reimu-chan and Byakuren-sama could do anything about your current state, Shou-san was the worst off out of her, Ichirin-san and Minamitsu-san. She said it was her fault that you were like this, and she was deeply regretting it. Don't you think you should at least give her a chance?"

I hadn't quite intended it, but I had told her off in a much more stern fashion than I would have liked. It left Nazrin speechless.

I sighed. "Sorry about that. I… kind of got carried away. But I mean what I say. This problem is between the two of you, and in order to solve it, you have face it head-on."

I stepped a bit closer. "You don't want this to drag out any longer, do you?"

Stark realization was all I got. I didn't want to press this hard, but if Nazrin and Shou kept this up, we would never be able to get rid of the current problem.

Ashamed, Nazrin averted her gaze, and walked a short distance away.

I sighed again, feeling guilty, but just the slightest bit satisfied.

"So, have you got her yet, Yukari-sama?"

"Be patient please. This takes a while, you know."

"What do you mean? All you did was touch my forehead, and I was here in an instant."

"No, no; I mean, do you know how hard it is to bring a third arm into the equation?"

Oh. So that was the reason why it took that much more energy?

"One moment, and… there!"

A human-sized egg of portal-stuff came from nowhere, a couple feet from me. When it shrank away, Shou was there.

"Huh?" She glanced around in complete confusion. "What the- Kaito-san, where am I?"

"Hello there, Shou-san. Let me bring you up to speed…."

The explanation was… difficult, to say the least. Naturally, I still felt bad for forcing myself into the catalyst role between the two, so it got pretty awkward, for one thing. On top of that, during the entire time I was explaining, Shou often glanced over to where Nazrin was. If anything, that just made me feel even worse. But I pressed on with it.

By the time I was finished, I didn't even know if Shou was listening to me anymore, since all she was doing was staring at Nazrin, a guilty look on her face.

"Shou-san…" I started, ready to apologize.

"Stop," she denied. "You don't have to say anything. I was the one who did her wrong, and now I have a chance to make it right."

When she looked back to me, it was with a strangely relaxed expression. The edges of her lips were tugging at themselves, as if trying to smile in spite of the situation. "Thank you."

Without another word, she walked off to join Nazrin. I watched her go, still wallowing in my own remorse for pulling a gamble like this.

"You wish to know why they are so troubled, right?"

"Eh?" Yukari had an understanding look on her face when I turned back. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's written all over your face, Kaito. You feel bad for butting in on their business when you have no right to do so. But if you know what's going on, then that guilt will disappear, isn't that right?"

"I suppose so," I agreed uneasily. "But I have a nagging feeling that if I know what's happening, I'll just feel worse."

"That's not too far from the truth," Yukari said, chuckling a bit. "However, you've only scratched the surface of what's happening between those two, you know."

"So I'm assuming you were watching over them all this time?"

"But of course! I watch everything that goes on around Gensokyo."

That came to little surprise. It made me wonder how much Yukari actually knew about Gensokyo as a whole, and its individual inhabitants.

"Well… I guess so. Are you sure it's okay to be telling me this?"

A tiny smile. "I'm only doing this to help you understand more of the people around you. There are many that will be important later on, and if you don't learn now, it will come at a price later."

Later on….

What was that supposed to mean? All of this had to do with me? How?

Those were questions for later; she wouldn't answer them properly even if I asked. "Fine. You can enlighten me if you'd like. But I still get the feeling I won't like this too much."

"Very well then. Allow me to start from the beginning….

"While both Shou and Nazrin are devotees to Byakuren and her cause, they are also disciples of the god Bishamonten. Byakuren, in fact, was the one to first introduce Shou to the god himself and ask him to take her on as a follower. When he did so, she proved to be one of his brightest and most competent followers. However, Bishamonten had not given Shou his full confidence yet. So in order to watch over her, since he often wasn't at the temple, he set Nazrin to keep an eye on her. Nazrin, by the way, is actually one of Bishamonten's most trusted helpers.

"For some time, Nazrin kept a close eye on Shou, acting as her underling in order to do so. That's right; those two are more or less master and servant, even now. Shou didn't show any problems with her duties, to the point where Nazrin believed it no longer necessary to keep evaluating her time after time. On top of that, the two of them had grown rather close together. When Nazrin was first introduced by Shou to Ichirin and Minamitsu, she was quite distant from them, believing their relations to be only temporary, and that she would return to Bishamonten's service once Shou's evaluation period was over. That didn't happen; over time, Nazrin grew closer to the others, to the point where she stayed with them even after she no longer had to keep an eye on Shou anymore.

"However, something happened some time ago that spun things out of control, and led to the events of now. Do you know what it is?"

I kind of wish I knew now. Hearing all this was good, I supposed. Knowing a little more about the people I met was usually a good thing. But what could have happened that led to so much?

I shook my head, almost dreading the answer.

"Nazrin realized something: she had fallen in love with Shou."

She….

WHAT?

A very calm but serious look from Yukari was all that was keeping me from completely freaking out. No wonder this was such an uncomfortable topic for Nazrin! If I had known this before, then I might never have asked for Yukari to bring in Shou. How could I have made such a careless mistake?

"Judging from your reaction, this is exactly what you weren't expecting, am I right?" Yukari asked.

Slowly, I nodded.

"It is nothing but the truth, however. And that is the exact reason why the situation is as it is. When Nazrin realized she harbored romantic affection for her 'master' it caused a wide host of problems. Aside from having to deal with the fact that the two of them were first and foremost master and servant, despite Shou not treating it as such, she had to fight off the fact that both of them were female – which, to Nazrin, felt like a sin to the gods. For a rather large number of years, she stowed away her affections, trying to keep them from getting between herself and Shou.

"Then, a few weeks ago, all of Nazrin's pent-up emotions hit a breaking point. She went and out and out told Shou of her affection. As you can expect, the latter party in this didn't take it quite so well, and fled from the scene. And it only got worse from there; Shou felt far too awkward to even talk to Nazrin anymore. Instead, she tried to avoid her, devoting more time in service to Byakuren. Unfortunately, now that Nazrin was no longer attempting to hide away from her emotions, she felt that the fact Shou was avoiding her and spending more time with Byakuren meant something other than simply being her devotee. Do you understand that?"

I thought about it for a bit, even though I didn't really want to. And then, the answer came to me.

"Nazrin-san… became jealous of Byakuren-sama, didn't she?"

"That's correct."

She didn't say anymore, so I figured that I had to think of something there. I stretched my brain in thought; this almost felt like too much to take in all at once. But then, I found a specific connection.

"Then that means… the darkness in Nazrin's heart grew from jealousy."

"Exactly. She realizes this, now that she's spent some time under its heel."

I looked over to the pair, who looked like they were talking. Now that I knew what was going on, I actually sort of wanted to know what they were talking about. But I knew it wasn't my place to do so. All I had done was act as an unknowing catalyst all because I had seen that they looked like they needed help.

I should have figured out more. Or better yet, maybe I shouldn't have tried at all.

Then I felt Yukari's hand on my shoulder. "Do not worry yourself, Kaito. You made a blind decision, but it was also the right one. The only way this dilemma will be solved is if the misunderstanding between the two of them is cleared up. If that didn't happen, then even if you and Nazrin alone were able to defeat the darkness, it would not have left, and only would have come back stronger some time later."

"I guess… but what if they can't solve it?"

"That's not something I would worry about," Yukari said, smiling. "Look now."

I turned back, and was met by a very relieving sight.

The two of them were embracing each other.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. So it all worked out after all….

Thank the gods.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

"Wait a second, hold up there, did you just make a second pairing aside from what was supposed to be expected? What's going on here?"

Well, yeah, that was what I chose to do. When I was planning out this point of the story (which was actually some time ago), I had to think up some kind of reason for why Nazrin is in such a state. As should be pretty obvious by this point, setting up a love triangle was the easiest method of doing so. Besides, hell if we know what's going on in the heads of the Gensokyans.

Truthfully, while Shou and Nazrin aren't my favorite couple of the franchise itself (Marisa takes the cake there with her harem XD), they were the simplest one by far. Will they go off to truly be happy ever after? Time will tell.

And by time, I mean how long it'll take for me to get the next chapter out!

But anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	32. Chapter 32: Resolution Means Death

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 32: Resolution Means Death**

"So I'm assuming all three of you are ready now?"

"Yeah."

"Uh-huh."

"Yes."

"Shou, Kaito, remember you two are the most vulnerable here. Come back here before too much harm comes, or you'll never go back alive."

"We understand."

"Thank you, Yukari-sama."

"Nazrin, this will be your greatest test. Perhaps even greater than the one Bishamonten placed before you in order to enter his service. Are you ready?"

"I am."

"Then I wish you the best of luck."

"Right!"

"Come on, you two, let's go!"

* * *

It was a pretty long walk, needless to say. I didn't bother flying, since it turned out neither of the other two could, and I didn't think I'd be able to carry both of them at once.

The atmosphere was heavy. Not one of us said a single word the entire time. Probably for two reasons; there wasn't much to talk about, and there was too much going on for us to really want to say anything either.

But time wasn't a problem. It felt like the world was passing as slowly as possible just to give us an opportunity to fight. With each step we took, we were walking against the clock, as if to keep time from passing. I don't know how long we were walking for, but however long it was, it seemed to drag on for an eternity.

Maybe it was just because we were inside Nazrin's mind. Who knew? We sure didn't.

And there it was.

Off in the distance, we could finally see it; the group that we were looking for.

The dark Nazrin, and her army of mice.

The air around us tensed the instant she was in sight. Our final confrontation was upon us. We picked up the pace; better to stop the infection in its tracks than let it come to us. The opposition seemed fine with letting us do so, and stopped.

Eventually, we were only a few meters from the very front of the crowd. Upon closer inspection, I realized that Nazrin was right; those were all mice. Perhaps hundreds of them, milling about in a chaotic crowd of mammalian bodies reigned in under the control of their current master. Something told me that the fact they were black mice meant that their current master was channeling dark energy into them. If the real Nazrin were the one in control, they'd be a normal grey, just like her.

The dark Nazrin smiled, placing a single hand on one of the two dowsing rods crossed over her back. It was a bit startling, but I noticed that the dark version looked exactly identical to the real one. That would make things difficult if the two got caught in a scuffle….

"Well well, look who finally decided to show up," she snorted, addressing the real Nazrin directly. "And you even brought help? Hmph! Typical of the tiny commander to hide behind her guards."

"And what of you, huh?" the one behind me retorted. "You started with nothing, and the very first thing you decided to do was steal my dowsing rods just so you could have an army to hide behind. How can you call that honorable?"

A quick paean of laughter. And this time, the copy drew out both rods, brandishing them. "I don't call it honorable. I call it taking control. I'm going to make you regret your thoughts. Isn't it sinful to think of your master in such a way?"

Psychological warfare. Just great. I could feel my body stiffen, ready for a sudden assault once the attack on Nazrin's mind was over.

"The only sin I committed was letting you get inside my head. Now, I want you out!"

"Not going to happen. I actually kind of like it here. Maybe it would be better if _you_ left."

Copy-Nazrin held out the rods, arms up like a cross, forming a horizontal rectangle. The mice froze for a second, then began bunching together, building. In a few seconds, copy-Nazrin had a massive golem of mice standing behind her, about as large as Shou and me combined.

"How about I see how you handle this, hm?"

I gritted my teeth. Copy-Nazrin was trying to divide us up. At most, the golem would occupy two of us, while the last remaining person would fight the controller herself.

This was still Nazrin's fight, but if she went up against the shadow, we could all too easily lose track of her. How were we supposed to divide ourselves?

Nazrin, however, only seemed to share my sentiments on my first thought. "Leave the copy to me. She's mine!"

"Wait up," I interrupted. "The only way we're able to tell the two of you apart is that one has the dowsing rods, the other doesn't. What if they change hands? How will we know then? And aren't you at an initial disadvantage without them?"

"She won't be."

Shou stepped forward, holding out the pagoda. "Take this, Nazrin."

The mouse was taken aback in an instant. "W-what? But that's your-"

"I know. That's why I want you to take it. You can use it in your fight."

Then the tiger gave a sheepish smile. "Besides, chances are, I'll wind up losing it at some point anyways. It'll be better if you keep it."

Wide eyes and a red face accepted the little glowing pagoda with reverence. "Thank you…."

She closed her eyes, and the pagoda glowed brightly. A cry of pain came in response, and I assumed that it was the copy-Nazrin.

And then, two bursts of white light flashed, and in their place hung two dowsing rods – exactly the same size and shape as the real ones, except white – floating in midair.

"What the…" I uttered.

"My pagoda is an imitation of Bishamonten's own pagoda, which holds unspeakable treasures," Shou explained. "If one wishes to, they can channel their power into the pagoda to have it replicate one of their own personal treasures."

"Are you finished talking yet?"

We turned back, and watched in disgust as copy-Nazrin licked one of the dowsing rods in a rather disgusting fashion. "I'm itching to try out this new body once I've won."

"I'm gonna have a hard time cleaning that rod when this is all over…" Nazrin muttered. "This body isn't for you to take. It's time for you to leave!" The rods clanged together in response to her emotions. The sound they made was just like real metal.

"I haven't had a good fight in a while," Shou said, spinning her spear in both hands, ending with the point facing the giant. "And this time, I actually have two hands for my spear. Today's a good day."

My own blade sprouted from my fist, and I ran a single hand over it (I had no idea how _solid energy_ was supposed to make sense) before dropping to a ready stance; one arm out in front, blade up by my face, parallel to my arm. "You better be prepared, shadow. Prepared for a quick defeat!"

"Go ahead and try!"

Nazrin charged first, dashing past the golem and heading straight for her mirror image. The golem pounded its fists together, ready to take on the remaining two people mounting the second assault.

I was the faster of us two, and I ducked and slid between the golem's legs just as a massive hand came crashing down. The second hand took a swipe, and Shou dodged to one side. Together, we brought our weapons up to stab into the golem.

Two holes bored their way through. But they weren't made by our weapons.

I grunted, and brought the blade down, intending to slash part of the golem in half. The hole followed my sword, leaving the monster completely intact, sewing the empty spots together with no effort at all.

Oh boy….

The gargantuan mouse turned and kicked out. I jumped away, and sent my blade singing through the air to cut its leg. The entire limb disconnected as one before the tiniest bit of my weapon even touched it. The mice making up the leg dissolved immediately, fleeing back to the main body, and regenerating the lost leg before the entire structure went toppling to the floor.

Great; the fact that this thing was made up of bunches of tinier creatures meant it could easily just move its components around to dodge attacks or, like what just happened, regenerate parts we managed to cut off.

For maybe a minute, Shou and I didn't give in; we kept dodging and attacking when we could. Nothing we did was any good. I tried blasting water into the monstrosity, but the upper body just jumped up independently, and the water went sailing off into nowhere. Dual attacks didn't work either; every part of the thing had a mind of its own, and even when I dove for the head while Shou attacked the legs, the individual parts would disjoint and re-joint at fantastic speeds.

"Well this isn't doing any good," I pointed out needlessly as I tried to make a clean diagonal cut. "Any ideas?"

"Not really," the tiger replied, leaping away from a massive fist. "Maybe a spell card would work?"

"Probably." I ducked under a kick and cut away the leg, moving a safer distance away. "Do they even work in here?"

"Can't say. But it'd be better to save our cards, wouldn't it?"

"Well, yeah, of course. But I have one I think would be perfect for this situation. But we need to position ourselves right. I don't want to hit Nazrin-san with this."

"Then let's move!"

I took the initiative, moving myself so I was between the giant and the two Nazrins fighting, putting a couple meters between myself and the monster. Shou soon joined me.

"Get behind me and hold on tight!"

She obeyed, wrapping an arm around my stomach.

I shut off my energy blade. The giant chased after us with speed I hadn't expected from something made up of so many smaller creatures. One hand slipped into my pocket and pulled out both my spell cards. I selected one, and jammed the other back into my pocket.

This would only be my second time using the card, and it cracked apart the instant I called out the first words.

_"O, animae temporis, date virem me, et consistite mundum in loco!"_

The giant transformed, as if washed over with white paint as the world froze. Now that it was moving less, I could practically pick apart the individual mice that made up the creature that attempted to kill us. Not that it was going to matter in a few seconds.

_"O, animae aquae et venti, temperate, et eradicate meum advosarium__! Time Storm: Split-Second Hurricane!"_

Water flowed from my hand, and in a second, a hurricane erupted before me. With that same hand, I pushed, letting the hurricane find its target. The storm was almost upon it when I snapped my fingers.

Several things happened at once. Everything broke, pieces of the glass sky falling away. But they didn't vanish like last time; instead, they fell into the whirlwind, given form by the aether-like world they were spawned in, and were caught in its violent grasp. The giant didn't fare any better; it was ripped apart, individual mice swirling around helplessly in the chaos of my cyclone.

But then I realized something; if that broken glass was real….

"Shou-san, get down!"

I half-tackled her to the ground, making sure I was leaning over her. No sooner did I do that when the storm ended, sending mice and shrapnel shooting off in every direction at once. I would have been fine, most likely, but if Shou had been standing, she would have gotten skewered.

"Are you alright?" I asked once I was sure the entire ordeal was over with.

"Yeah, I'm fine. That was supposed to be a spell card?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? I'm human, yet I can do all this."

"You're human?"

"Yeah. Long story. You can worry about that later. Come on!"

I stood up and pulled Shou with me, and as one, we began running towards the other fight.

From the looks of it, neither of them had gotten hit in the slightest by the flying shards of glass I had chucked out a few seconds ago. The two of them looked more like they were dancing than anything else; leaping, spinning about, clashing dowsing rods against one another in a strangely rhythmic pattern. I'd never seen anyone fight so acrobatically. Yet it was also disturbing, knowing that one of them was nothing but a dark reflection perfectly mimicking the other in order to stay alive. The only way we could tell them apart was by the fact one of them wielded black steel rods, while the other had rods made of white light.

"Is this all you've got, huh?" copy-Nazrin jested, flipping away after smashing her rod straight into Nazrin's. "Looks like falling head over heels for a _woman_ has made you soft! How do you expect to beat me when you're like this?"

"You're nothing but an insubstantial shadow," real-Nazrin retorted, chasing after with a low swing. I had figured that real-Nazrin would have the upper hand, since she didn't even have to hold her rods to use them, but that apparently wasn't the case for some reason. Copy-Nazrin was just too skilled. "Don't think you're so high and mighty just because you've become this big for a little while."

Low parry, high counter. "And who do you think let me get this big, hm? No one else but you, pathetic mouse. How can you even call yourself one, if the one you fell for is a tiger?"

High block, stab at the stomach. "Then that makes me the bravest mouse to ever live!"

I had to admit, I was just a little surprised; real-Nazrin wasn't giving an inch against her copy, shooting back responses like a professional at a debate, all while fighting up close and personal. It was mesmerizing to watch, almost. But we had to get in on the fight and take care of things quickly, or something even worse would take place.

Copy-Nazrin grinned with malice. "Such denial! Guess I'll have to strike harder if I want you to listen."

She blocked a double overhead swing, and shoved back. Real-Nazrin stumbled backwards; apparently, not holding her rods didn't mean she didn't feel them being knocked around.

Copy-Nazrin's foot lashed out, kicking the real one a good distance away. Then she passed both rods to one hand, and whipped a black card out from within her shirt. _"__スネア、すべての生命を液汁荒涼とした鉱山！__Dark Tactics: Nevermore!"_

She dropped the card into the floor, where it passed through without even disturbing the ground.

And all of a sudden, as we were running, a large patch of flowers several feet in front of us dissolved into dirt, a hollow magic circle inside.

Crap!

I was just about to call out "It's a mine!" when Shou got to it first. We were too close to dodge it now. But Shou shoved me out of the way.

"Shou-san, no!"

Her whole foot landed inside the dirt patch.

And the mine exploded.

"Shou-san!"

A pillar of unholy light burst from the dirt, fragments of black flying up with it. When the light and dark matter finally dissipated, it revealed a Shou bound from the neck down in thick root-like snares. They were the color of rotten wood, pulsing with energy.

Copy-Nazrin laughed maniacally. "Such an easy catch! Let's see what happens now, shall we?"

She began sprinting at the helpless tiger.

She didn't expect the furious cry that came next.

"GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU BITCH!"

Shock became registered on copy-Nazrin's face when real-Nazrin rammed into her with incredible force, carrying the pair at least a few meters away, turning and tumbling. One of the black rods went flying into the sky, spinning over and over before clattering to the floor.

I righted myself, ran over to the bound Shou, and instantly began yanking on the roots. It was no good; the roots were far too thick for my hands to do anything.

"Ah!" Shou yelled in pain.

"Hold on!"

I took a single step back, prepping a palm for my next action.

BOOM!

The blast was immense; for a split second, I could have sworn Shou had been eaten by my palm blast. When the blue cleared away however, my intentions were proven true. Large chunks of the roots had been blown away. Shou could move now, but was still trapped.

"Ngh…" she grunted. "One more!"

I nodded, and repeated my action.

BOOM!

"Argh!" Shou cried out, shaking loose the remaining pieces of dead wood that were still sticking to her. "Thanks. Where's Nazrin?"

I glanced around for only a second before I spotted the dueling pair.

And there was a huge problem.

I couldn't tell which was which.

The two were locked in their dance once more, except it was a little different; they only had one rod each. I couldn't tell the two apart at all. The only discernable differences were the different letters welded onto the ends of the rods, but I had no idea which one was holding which.

How the hell….

I searched the floor, and found my answer; real-Nazrin had ditched the pagoda before charging copy-Nazrin. In order to compensate for her sudden lack of weapons, she had picked up the closest possible object with which she could fight; the dowsing rod copy-Nazrin had dropped not a minute ago.

"Shit…" I swore under my breath. We couldn't risk attacking now, since we couldn't tell the two apart. There was a fifty-fifty chance we'd either help or hurt real-Nazrin, but in a situation like this, that wasn't a chance that should be taken. What were we supposed to do now?

"What are we going to do?" Shou asked, in a tone that indicated she was even more worried than I was.

"I don't know!" I groaned. "I think the best we can do is hope for the best by this point."

Fear was the largest thing reflected in the tiger's golden eyes. I wish I could have said something better, but that was all I got.

God, how could we be so useless?

Then, something bright flashed in Shou's eyes.

"No…" she murmured. "There may be something I can do."

"Well, anything is fine," I stated. "We have to try!"

She nodded, and took the lead, walking to the fight. Once we were a certain distance away, she stopped.

"Nazrin!" she called out. Her right hand was holding her spear, while the other was held over her heart.

The fighting ceased almost at once; both Nazrins stopped, turning to look at Shou.

"I… I have something I want to say. No…" she corrected. "It's something I _need_ to say."

"Well make it fast!" both snapped in perfect sync with each other.

"Um…." Shou averted her gaze for a little bit, as if abashed at what she was going to say. What could she possibly say that would be so bad?

"Nazrin, I…

"I love you."

_Clang!_

That was the sound of several things hitting the floor; my jaw, along with both dowsing rods.

No way….

Did Shou just say that?

"I love you, Nazrin," she repeated. "I don't know when it started, or how, but after all this has happened, I realize that fact now. I wish I had said so before, so we wouldn't be in this mess, but that's the truth. I love you!"

For what felt like an hour, not one of us moved. All that _did_ move was the subtle breeze whistling by.

Two very different reactions occurred at once; Nazrin-one lifted her hands to her mouth in shock. Nazrin-two's face lit up like a lantern.

"R-really?" Nazrin-two breathed, elated. "Do you mean that?"

Shou faced her directly, and nodded.

Nazrin-two took a couple steps closer to the master. "E-even more than Byakuren-sama?"

The whisper came back almost immediately. "Yes…."

Her face grew even brighter, and the tears of joy came then. Nazrin-two ran at Shou, throwing her arms around the tiger the instant she was in range.

"Th-thank you Shou…" she uttered, choking back her sobs. "You… don't know how long I've been waiting for you to say that."

"You've been waiting too long," Shou answered simply. "Far too long…."

I drank in the sight slowly. So that had to be it. This one had to be the real Nazrin.

Once I had that set, I took the initiative, sprinting and diving. Copy-Nazrin shrieked in surprise as I drove her into the floor. After a few moments of wrestling, I managed to overpower her, pinning her face down against the ground, my arm against her neck and hands pinning her arms.

"Wait, no," she began.

"Too late," I interrupted. "Game over, shadow."

"No, stop, you're wrong! I'm not the shadow!" copy-Nazrin pleaded.

"Not going to work," I denied. "Shou, take care of this."

"Yes."

The happy pair strode over, real-Nazrin under Shou's arm.

"Could you please back up a bit?" Shou asked. "I'll need a bit of room."

Real-Nazrin nodded, and stepped back.

Shou raised her spear, the point bearing down on the head of copy-Nazrin. "You've overstayed your welcome, shadow."

Gray eyes dissolved into despair, and copy-Nazrin began struggling like a madman. "Shou, no! Listen to me, I'm the real one!"

"I'm afraid I cannot believe you," Shou stated coldly.

"Make this fast!" I urged, doing my best to keep my grip. "I don't know how long I can hold her down."

"Very well then." She spun her spear in one hand, as if preparing to throw it, and lifted it up, ready to perform the final impalement that would end this whole thing. The sharpened tip gleamed in the sun.

Copy-Nazrin suddenly stopped struggling, sobbing desperately.

"_Please, Shou!"_ she screamed. _"You have to believe me!"_

I looked up at the tiger, whose face was completely impassive, only raising the spear just a little higher.

Then something happened that I did not expect at all.

Shou smiled gently.

Her last words to the copy came out as a whisper.

"… I know."

_Shunk!_

The world let out an immense gasp.

Shou hadn't stabbed down with the spear. She had swung it. _Behind her._

Real-Nazrin was so surprised, she didn't even cry out when she realized she had a spear embedded in her stomach.

What the….

Shou's eyes shined with what I could only describe as pure, unadulterated rage. Rage, I realized now, that had been concealed.

"The real Nazrin…" she began, her voice stifled with anger. "The real Nazrin would be shocked into submission by a revelation like that. And the real Nazrin would never ask a question requiring me to disparage Byakuren-sama. Two fatal mistakes, _shadow!_"

Little noise came from 'real'-Nazrin as a single hand drifted up to touch the shaft of the spear.

And she fell backwards.

"Now…."

Shou walked a short distance and picked back up her pagoda, going back to copy-Nazrin once she did. A light flash, and a bright yellow card was there, floating alongside the pagoda. She withdrew her spear, in a not-so-child-friendly manner, since when she did so, she had to plant her foot on the body and yank it out with great force. I could have sworn I heard something tear.

"_絶対神の稲妻を押し呼べ！ __Buddha's Light: Vajra of Perfect Buddhism!"_

She planted the spear on the grass directly in front of her, and it stood perfectly straight without assistance. She clapped her hands together, making several hand signs, ending with her right on top of the left, two fingers standing erect.

Both her spear and pagoda glowed with radiant energy. Oh boy….

She grasped the spear with both hands and spun it several times, ending with the point facing down.

"_Die well, shadow!"_

_Shink!_

KABOOM!

A humongous lightning bolt dropped from nowhere, right on Shou's spear.

The scream of the shadow was like that of a banshee. Shrieking, convulsing, copy-Nazrin writhed with pain. Tiny tendrils of dark essence began flowing out, leaving nothing behind, dissolving the copy.

And in a few moments, it was gone.

Silence.

I couldn't believe it….

I let myself up, releasing my hands from Nazrin. And I backed up a few steps to give the two a little room.

Wow, Shou.

I don't know how long Nazrin lay there before she found the necessary motor controls to start moving. And even when she did, it was with extremely low speed. It seemed like she didn't want to move at all, because all she did was prop herself up on her arms before stopping.

The tiger came back empty handed, the spear still stabbed into the floor, and the pagoda lying right next to it. With two hands, she picked up the mouse and stood her up. I suspected that her hands were the only things holding up the shaky mouse.

"I'm so sorry…" Shou whispered, just loud enough for me to still hear. "For making you go through that."

Nazrin was completely lost for words. All she could really do was stutter out a few letters.

"N-no… t-th-that…. I-I…."

Suddenly, Shou….

Oh geez!

I averted my gaze entirely. Holy crap, Shou, _give some warning_ before you kiss someone, will you?

I continued to stare off into space for a few more seconds before turning back. I was thankfully greeted by a tiger that wasn't on the face of a mouse.

"I wasn't lying about what I said," Shou continued. "I really do love you. And I wish I had realized that sooner. I'm sorry."

For a couple seconds, all Nazrin did was stare up in awe, lost in the eyes of love. Then her hands moved, placing themselves on the waist of her opposite.

"Shou…."

Oh god, this was going to devolve into something I did _not_ want to see if nothing was done.

I groaned quietly to myself, promptly walked in, put a hand on each of their foreheads, and pushed them apart.

"Alright you two, that's enough. I'm sure Nazrin-san's imagined this scenario more than enough times when you're _not_ around, Shou-san. Once we get back to the real world, you two can get a room, and _then_ get down to some real kissing, okay?"

"Oh, sorry about that, Kaito-san," Shou apologized, scratching her head.

"Is there anything wrong with this or something?" Nazrin asked, in a rather innocent tone. I had a feeling she was teasing me.

"No, Nazrin-san. I'm just feeling a little uncomfortable, and not just because I'm the third wheel here. Come on!" I pulled on Shou a bit.

The two laughed. All I did was smile a bit sheepishly. But they did listen to me. After a couple of final longing looks between the two (which I felt took just a little bit too long), they finally parted.

"I will see you two back outside," Nazrin assured. She picked back up her two dowsing rods. Even as we watched a few mice – now a normal gray – were coming back from when I threw them away with my spell card. "Kaito-san, I will never forget what you've done for me. Thank you."

"It was no problem," I responded.

We shook hands. And before Shou and Nazrin could do much more, I put a single hand on Shou's shoulder, indicating that it was time for us to leave, and I wasn't going to let her extend time for much longer.

She smiled apologetically.

"Goodbye, Nazrin."

"Goodbye…."

* * *

"Ngh…."

I winced a bit. It felt like something had just punched me in the chest.

"Is something wrong?" Shou asked.

"No… it's nothing."

The two of us were on route back to Yukari and the portal. The fields and grass looked brighter than before, the sky no longer in danger of turning red with blood. The shadow Nazrin was gone now, so it made sense. Everything was completely peaceful.

Yet something seemed to want to disturb that peace. It hadn't quite been nothing, the 'punch' to my chest. That was just what it felt like; the pain itself seemed… deeper somehow. The pain didn't subside immediately. In fact, it felt like it was getting stronger….

But I didn't want to let it bother me. Maybe it was just some odd side effect of staying in Nazrin's mind for too long that Yukari hadn't told me about. I'd ask her about it later.

It was hard, though. With each step I took, it felt like the pounding in my chest was growing stronger, as if my heart was getting ready to rip itself out. Movement was getting more difficult. My breathing grew a bit labored.

What the hell was going on?

I grimaced a bit, but I cleared up my face as quickly as possible. I didn't want Shou to notice anything.

_Ba-bump!_

"Gah!" I blurted out. It felt like a hammer had just hit me!

"Kaito-san?"

I grunted, trying my best to keep my face controlled. "N-no… it's nothing, don't wor-"

_Ba-bump!_

"Agh!" I stopped walking entirely, hand on my chest. My teeth were ready to start grinding. What the hell was this?

"Kaito-san, what's wrong?"

"I… I'm not sure… This is just… Agh!"

I dropped to one knee.

_Ba-bump! Ba-bump!_

What the… why was this….

"Can you walk? Do you need help?"

"Ngh… I can… Gyah!"

"Kaito-san, hold on!"

The grass was… soft. And I could feel myself lifted from it.

_Ba-bump! Ba-bump! Ba-bump!_

_POOM!_

The pain stopped.

Huh? Had I blacked out earlier?

I opened my eyes slowly. They were met by a wooden wall. Was I back outside? If I was, then I was looking at the wall of the room in Reimu's shrine.

"Kaito-san!"

What? That wasn't Shou….

I looked right to see a shocked Minamitsu.

"Ah, Minamitsu-san," I asked a bit uneasily. "Is everythi-"

"What's wrong with you?" she interrupted.

"Huh?" I looked down at myself, and I looked perfectly fine. "What do you me-"

I gasped when I looked back.

Was that….

… me?

My own body lying on the floor?

Wait! Then was I… dead?

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_**

* O, spirits of time, give me strength, and stop the world in place!

O, spirits of water and wind, combine, and eradicate my enemy!

** A desolate mine that snares and saps all life!

*** Call down the lightning bolt of absolute divinity!

Whew, finals have been creeping up on, from what I can see, quite a few of us - and truth be told, I'm right in the middle of my finals week! Didn't really stop me from writing though, and while finals are still going on, I feel like this chapter is very late in coming (which, truthfully, it is).

The thing is, I feel like this chapter was pretty crappy. Especially going into the end. That part was just beyond sloppy. I really need to get my head back in the game...

If anyone has any helpful critique they can give on this chapter, then please do so. I feel like if I get bashed on something like this, it'll encourage me to make something that isn't totally worthless.

But they say that even in a complete crap piece of work, there's still a tiny bit of value or good derived from it. In this case, the part I most like that I don't think is bad is the point where I have Shou spot the thread. Then again, that pretty much one good point compared to a bunch of other stuff I believe could have been better.

By the way, for people who recognize where it's from, yes, I did take the function for copy-Nazrin's spell card right out of League of Legends. I've been playing it on occasion, and I found myself fascinated by the functions of Swain's skills. So I thought "Huh... maybe I could try changing up one of his skills a little?" And this was the turn out: a glyph mine (the idea for which was slightly influenced by one of the bosses from Final Fantasy X, who used a skill called exactly that).

Also, the word _vajra_ actually is supposed to mean _adamantite_, which is to say _diamond-like_ or _indestructible_. While that raises some questions, the term itself can also be translated differently to mean _thunderbolt_ (and taken in context, thunderbolts really _are_ indestructible), hence the effect that came from Shou's usage of the card. Weird, huh?

Hope you enjoyed this chapter~ I'll see what I can do about the next one!

**EDIT:** The incantation for my spell card has been changed, courtesy of egyptianpanda's help with the Latin translation.


	33. Chapter 33: Nowhere Else To Go

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 33: Nowhere Else To Go**

So this was what it felt like being a spirit?

It was weird. I didn't feel like I was dead at all. I could feel my heart beating… I could feel the wooden floor beneath me… I didn't even _look_ dead. What the heck was going on?

"Hey, can't you explain this?" Minamitsu asked hurriedly.

"I'm just as confused as you are!" I responded. "What do you mean, what's wrong with me? All I'm really seeing is that I'm having an out-of-body experience right now."

"But then that's-"

She suddenly stopped, and turned to her comrades. "What do you mean, what am I doing? Can't you see I'm talking to Kaito-san over here?"

What?

I turned to face the other people in the room. Byakuren, Ichirin and Reimu were still awake, with confused looks on their faces. Yukari, Nazrin, and Shou were still unconscious, lying alongside my own body.

Ichirin's mouth moved, as if she was talking. But I couldn't hear anything. Why?

"Wait, huh?" Minamitsu blurted out in surprise.

She looked back at me with wide eyes. "They say they can't see you."

Huh?

I slowly, carefully walked over to Reimu, so I was standing right in front of her.

It didn't look like she could see me at all. In fact, she was practically looking right past me, at Minamitsu.

I waved a hand, and there was no reaction. I reached out to try touching her, but when my hand got to her face, it just phased right through. All of a sudden, she shivered a bit. I had very literally sent a chill running down her spine.

So was it true then? Was I really dead? Nothing more than a spirit?

I backed up a bit. Geez, this was just….

Then, Byakuren's violet eyes brightened for a second. She took one of her rods in each hand and pulled them apart. Running between the two like a scroll was a long panel of rainbow-assorted blocks of various shapes. As if she was reading it, she stared into the blocks. And her eyes widened. Her mouth moved.

"What?"

Minamitsu suddenly came in and grabbed me by the shoulders. I was surprised she could touch me, but then realized that since she was a ghost as well, it made sense.

"Byakuren-sama can see you past her scroll!"

Seriously?

"Hang on a moment."

She turned back to Byakuren. "You said you had an idea, Byakuren-sama?"

For several seconds, I could see her mouth moving from behind the rainbow scroll.

"Yeah… I think that might work," Minamitsu agreed, a wide smile crossing her face. "Try it!"

"What's she going to try?"

"Byakuren-sama is a magician that specializes in magic that improves physical abilities. She's going to try and cast a spell that will allow herself, Ichirin, and Reimu-san to interact with you."

She could do that? Wow, being a magician sounded amazing. If Byakuren could really pull it off, that would be great.

The magician released the scroll, and it hung in the air on its own. Her words sang with power, to the point where even I could feel them. The aura around her rods expanded, reaching out to envelop her open hands.

Her look grew intense, and she belted out the final words with such force, my whole being was shaken. The rainbow aura exploded, raining sparkles all around the room.

For a couple seconds after that, nothing happened.

Then, there were two simultaneous gasps.

"Kaito-kun, is that you?"

"What happened to you?"

Their voices were practically music to my ears. "Reimu-chan! Ichirin-san! I can hear you now."

"So… you really are a spirit then?" Ichirin asked a bit uneasily, and rather needlessly.

"I guess so… or at least, it's a yes if this is what it's like being a spirit. I don't even feel dead in the first place."

"That's because you're not."

"Huh? Oh, so you wake up now, Yukari-sama?"

"Actually, no," the boundary youkai replied, sitting up all of a sudden. "I was awake even before you regained awareness of your surroundings. But it will take some time for these two," she patted Shou and Nazrin on their heads, "to recover properly, so they're sleeping."

I didn't understand why she didn't just get up in the first place if she was already awake. But that wasn't the problem here.

"Alright, well you're awake now," I sighed. "Can you _please_ tell us all what the hell is going on here?"

"I'd be more than glad to explain," she said. The strange thing was she was smiling a bit.

"I'm pretty sure you had something to do with this part here, Kaito; at some point, while I was waiting for you three to defeat the shadow, a few black mice fell from the sky. They were rather disoriented, and weren't doing much, so I paid them no mind.

"However, a little while later, while I watched them mill about aimlessly, they all froze up at once. Then, thin trails of black smoke came streaming out of them, and they all returned to a normal gray color. I knew then that you three had done it; the shadow was gone, and you had saved Nazrin."

She suddenly grew serious. "But then something went wrong. The darkness coming from the mice didn't fade away completely. Instead, it started gathering into a little ball a little distance off. And all of a sudden, it shot off, diving into my little portal before I could do anything to stop it. I realized it was trying to find a way to escape into the body of either you, Kaito, or Shou."

The darkness grew a mind of its own? Geez, just how screwed up was this situation anyways? I knew it was bad, but not _this_ bad….

"I chased after the darkness into my boundary," Yukari continued, "and I was able to shield Shou in time before it got to her, so she's fine. However…."

That was all she needed to say. She hadn't been able to protect me.

"So… that was the pain I felt when I was still in Nazrin's mind."

"Perhaps," she confirmed. "Even though your soul was sent into her mind, you were still attached to your body. I would guess now that when the darkness invaded your body, the pain echoed with your soul."

That made sense… sort of.

"Anyways, since it would be far too hazardous to try and send you back to your body, I decided to take your soul – _half_ your soul, actually, since the soul is split into the physical _kon_ and spiritual _paku_ – and push it completely out of your body. Your _kon_ is still inside your body right now, consumed by the darkness that managed to invade and conquer it. The 'you' we see right now is your _paku_, having an out-of-body experience at the moment."

So that was it….

Wow.

"Then that means," Minamitsu conjectured, a hand on her chin. "The only way Kaito-san will get his body back is if we purify his physical body of the darkness?"

"That would seem to be the case, yes," Yukari answered.

"That's going to take a lot of holy energy," Byakuren pointed out. "At the current moment, even with mine and Reimu's skills, and Shou's pagoda, I don't think we don't have enough."

"It certainly will take some time," Yukari agreed.

Then, I noticed the pink cloud, Unzan, moving around behind Ichirin. The nun leaned in a bit closer, as if listening closely to something. Then I realized she really was listening, specifically to Unzan, a moment later.

"Unzan says there's a special place to the west where we may be able to find someone that can help."

"To the west…."

Reimu thought for a bit before brightening up. "Is the special place inside of a bamboo forest, Unzan-san?"

Bamboo forest?

"Um…." Ichirin leaned in again for a couple seconds. "Unzan says it is."

"That would Eientei, wouldn't it?" I asked before Reimu could get to it.

"Yeah!" Reimu agreed. "Maybe we could ask Eirin-san or Kaguya-sama to help out."

I rolled my eyes, sighing a bit. How ironic; Eirin had specifically told me not to get myself hurt too much after everything I'd been through under her care only a couple days ago. And now here I was, needing her help again. This would make it the fourth time I needed treatment from her. It made me feel kind of bad, having to ask for her help all the time.

"So I guess I'm going to be staying here for the time being?" I asked.

"Absolutely not!" Yukari denied. "You're still a spirit, remember? You need to go to Hakugyokoro."

"To… where?" The name seemed familiar, but I didn't know why.

"Hakugyokoro is a realm of the Netherworld. I have a personal friend there; she can take care of you while your body is in recovery."

The Netherworld? Well, since I was in this state, I supposed it made sense to just treat me like a lost spirit, or like I was actually dead (since I sort of was). Maybe a place like Hakugyokoro wouldn't be so bad.

"Alright then. So how do I get there?"

"I'll take you myself."

Now that was a bit odd. She wasn't just going to shove me through a portal?

Ah well, that wasn't my problem.

"Suit yourself."

Yukari smiled. A portal opened up and closed around her. A voice came from outside.

"Come on, Kaito, let's go!"

She couldn't have just done that for me to go to Hakugyokoro?

I sighed. "Thank you, everyone," I said, bowing. "Give my regards to Shou-san and Nazrin-san when they wake up. And… if it seems like they're acting odd around each other, don't pay too much attention to it, okay?"

"Odd?" Byakuren questioned. "How?"

"Eh… I think you'll know what I mean when it happens."

Hopefully, the two would take my advice and actually get a room, so the rest of their crew wouldn't have to deal with that dilemma.

"You know…" Minamitsu suddenly spoke. "It's strange, but it's a little comforting to know there's someone out there – well, that is to say, you – that's a spirit with human form, even if only temporarily. Maybe I'll see you some time later?" She smiled.

I returned the smile. "Maybe. Good to know that while I'm like this, there's someone that'll always be able to see me. And who knows; you might even get a comrade like this for the rest of time."

I didn't really want that to happen, of course, but I was just pointing it out.

I extended a hand out. "See you later, Minamitsu-san."

She took my hand and shook. "You too, Kaito-san."

* * *

"So I'm technically supposed to be dead right?"

"You could put it that way, yes. But it's closer to suspended animation than death, since when you actually die, there's no way for your _paku_ to return to the body."

"I see… Kind of like temporary death then? Huh…."

"Oh, I know what you're thinking."

"No doubt you do…."

Apparently, Yukari had chosen to escort me personally because she wanted to talk. Well, more like answer any questions I might have had at the moment, since there wasn't much to 'talk' about. But that was fine by me anyhow. Time had passed rather quickly, and it was far past midday now. Soon, it would be evening.

"Don't think that just because you're dead right now, your contract with that kappa girl will end. When you come back to life, the contract will reinstate itself, you know."

I sighed dejectedly. "Well there goes that idea."

"Do you really feel that bad about that?"

"Isn't it obvious? I never wanted it to happen in the first place. Even worse, I managed to pull it off on someone I've known for only about a week."

"But it worked out rather well in the end, didn't it? I would guess that her sleeping on your lap was not your own doing. Why are you still fussing over it?"

She had a point there. There wasn't any reason for me to get so worked up over something like this if it had worked out so well. But I couldn't quite help it. I still felt guilty. And I thought that the earlier this contract passed, the better it would be.

Maybe I was just making excuses.

"She really matters that much to you?" Yukari asked.

"Huh? Well, of course. I mean… she's a really nice girl, and the two of us have been through a lot already, even though it's only been a week. I'd have to have a heart of stone if she wasn't important to me after that."

What I chose to leave out of that little description was the fact I thought Nitori was really, really cute (I had a feeling seeing her naked twice in one night probably had something to do with this). Not like I'd reveal something like that to anyone anyways.

"You certainly do try very hard when matters concern her, though."

"Huh… I do, don't I? Can't say I know why, though."

I looked up to the sky. "Maybe I just feel some kind of connection to her. You know, kind of like a sibling somehow. It's kind of like that sense of duty… to protect her. Maybe I had siblings outside of Gensokyo, so I know how it feels. And that's how it is now."

Silence.

"You actually did, you know."

"Eh?"

Did Yukari just reveal a part of my outside life just now?

"You had siblings in the outside world. Two of them actually; one elder, and one younger. Though all three of you were boys, so I suppose that doesn't count quite so much, does it?"

I really had siblings? Two brothers?

That was a bit of a relief. But it made me feel sad. I wondered how they were faring without me around. Missing a brother must be taking a toll on them.

In fact, what of my mother and father? And my friends. And relatives, all of them; what were their lives like without me around?

I hoped they were happy, whoever they were.

"Ahahahaha!"

I glanced over in surprise, to see Yukari looking into a portal. When she noticed I was staring, she closed it.

"I just took a quick glance into the future," she choked out between laughs. "I must say, your future looks rather interesting."

"Really? Hm…."

Of course, I was curious about what she saw. But I didn't think it would be very wise for me to ask. After all, this was _my_ future. Asking about something like that wasn't smart.

On top of that, this was Yukari saying my future was interesting. I had a feeling her idea of 'interesting' was very different from my own.

For another half a minute or so, we kept going, with Yukari doing her best to stifle her giggles (it wasn't working). Then I noticed that we were getting close to the Youkai Mountain.

I pulled the brakes completely. "Wait a moment!"

Yukari went a short distance before coming to a full stop. "Yes?"

"Um… I want to visit Nitori-chan before I go."

"Oh? Then why not just bring her along? She's your servant, after all."

"No! Of course I'm not going to do that. I just… want to see her is all."

"You're going to have a hard time explaining this, you know."

"Yeah… I know. But I still want to see her. Can you help out?"

"But of course."

* * *

"Alright… Yukari-sama, do it."

A second later, a thin pink wall of energy winked into existence in front of me.

"Thanks."

I walked right through it, feeling something like a hot wall of steam passing through me.

"Nitori-chan."

A loud gasp, and a quick whirling of a dress.

"Kaito-kun! How did you get in?"

The workshop was the same as ever; metal in every direction, with various inventions on the tables and workbenches. I noticed that it was cleaner than the last time I was here. Probably because she was cleaning up everything she no longer needed for a big project like the generator.

The thing was, when I figured out where Nitori's workshop was supposed to be, the stairwell leading down had been submerged. Not that it was a problem for me now; after all, I was supposed to be dead.

"Well…" I began, scratching my head. "Um… maybe it would be easier if I just showed you."

I took a couple steps back, passing back through the pink barrier. This time, the feeling was cold, as if I was being soaked with ice water.

While I couldn't see very well past the barrier, I could tell Nitori was stunned. So I walked back through to demonstrate a second time, and so I could interact with her again.

"What… what happened to you?" she asked, dumbstruck.

"You see…."

I didn't leave out a single detail. It made me feel bad, having to tell her what was basically the story of how I died, but I wanted her to know, even telling her that Yukari was the one helping me and allowing me to deliver the message in the first place.

By the end of it all, she was silent. I didn't know how to read her expression at all. It looked like she was caught somewhere between immense pain, and mild contemplation.

I looked away in shame. "I'm going to be staying in Hakugyokoro for some time. I'll be back once my body has been revived by Byakuren-sama and the others. I don't know how long it will take, but I hope I come back soon. Good-bye."

And I turned to walk away.

"Wait!"

A hand had caught hold of my sleeve.

"I'm going with you."

What?

I didn't even turn to look at her; my eyes just darted back in surprise.

"Huh? You mean…."

A terse nod. "I'm going with you to Hakugyokoro."

Crap… this was exactly what I _didn't_ want to happen. I only intended to come by to see her, and that was it. I didn't want her to come with me to the land of the dead!

But… I felt like whatever I said, she wouldn't listen to me. Her eyes were determined now. For what reason, I had no idea, but she was set on coming with me, whether I liked it or not.

I wasn't sure if I was happy about that or not – though I was pretty sure I wasn't. But I knew I wasn't going to be able to change her mind.

I sighed deeply. "Fine. I guess I can't really stop you. You can come along if you'd like."

Another nod in confirmation. "I'll be gathering a few things to take with me. And I'll ask Marisa for a ride tomorrow. I'm sure she knows where it is."

Gee, Marisa's been everywhere, hasn't she? No doubt it was the same case with Reimu.

"Alright then."

I turned back with a sorrowful look in my eyes. But I smiled, and hugged her. "Thank you."

I didn't understand why she wanted to come. But I wasn't going to ask now. Yukari was still here, and I didn't want her to listen in on the two of us in case Nitori's reason was personal.

I let go of her. "I'll… see you tomorrow, then."

Without turning away, I walked back through the pink barrier. I could barely feel the cold water this time around; I wasn't sure why. Once that was done, I pushed off, feeling myself phase through the solid metal of the underwater workshop and passing the cool but healthy water behind it. It was the strangest feeling, being able to pass through anything I wanted.

But it was also a reminder of what I had turned into. And that it was only temporary.

God, this sucked.

"So, did it go well?" I heard once I broke the surface of the water and went up a short distance.

"That depends on your definition of 'well', Yukari-sama."

"Well, I would say it certainly did! Your friend is coming along with you now, right?"

"That's exactly what I _didn't_ want her to do!"

"But you're not mad about it, are you?"

I was about to say something in response, but stopped. She was right; I wasn't really mad about the fact Nitori was coming. To be honest, I think I was silently glad that I could spend more time with her. Maybe. I had no idea what I was thinking at that moment.

I sighed a bit. "Well, I guess not. But I still wish she wasn't coming."

"Not much you can do about that now~" she said playfully.

"I know."

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

Wow. This chapter is incredibly short. Especially when you look back at how insanely long the past few were. But I suppose it'll be fine for now. I'll probably wind up making the other chapters much longer. The next one, in particular, will probably be extra long, I hope. Yay~

Okay, I made this promise, and I intend to keep it. A **HUGE** thank-you is in order for a person by the name of egyptianpanda. In his/her review he/she pointed out what was wrong with my Latin translations (apparently, he's/she's going on his fourth year in learning it!) and even gave me the proper translations for them! This brought me back to the stark realization that I can't just take languages for granted, and relying on Google Translate is _a very bad idea_. To be honest, reading that review probably spurred me on to actually _want_ - actually, scratch that, _need _to learn the language myself (though I already kinda wanted to in the first place). So again, thank you so much. I may wind up asking for more help in the future (I really do have quite a few cards that will need remedying), so please, I would appreciate it so much if you could.

I guess that's all I have to say. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	34. Chapter 34: Hakugyokoro's Newcomer

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 34: Hakugyokoro's Newcomer**

_What the heck am I supposed to do about this gate?_

Honestly, the gate to Hakugyokoro was big, and looked almost impassable. The entire thing was made of strong, solid wood, stretching at least a couple stories upward. A massive magic circle floated directly in front of it, as if to hold the door in place. Since it was supposed to be the door to Hakugyokoro, and the Netherworld apparently, it made sense. _Something_ had to be keeping the spirits behind this door.

Once the two of us were back on track, Yukari pointed out the next mountain past the Youkai Mountain. It was the same cloud-covered one that I had seen when I was going to Hell with Aya. Yukari explained that the clouds hid the gateway to Hakugyokoro, and that if I just headed straight into the clouds, I would eventually get to it. And after that, she promptly opened a portal and left me alone.

The thing was, she didn't tell me how I was supposed to pass the gate.

I had tried pushing in on it, and the wood wouldn't budge an inch. I considered flying over it, but that didn't seem very possible. When I just walked into it, thinking I would phase right through, I wound up hitting my head. What the heck was I supposed to do?

I just sat there, considering my options. Maybe I could ask for help if someone came by….

"But what are we gonna do now?"

Oh, speak of the devil. This was convenient.

I turned around to see three people walking on the clouds a good distance away. They probably thought they were alone, so they were talking rather loudly. No wonder I could hear them. I strolled over to the gate (or rather, the magic circle slightly superimposed over it) and sat, leaning against it.

Even from this distance, I could see what they were wearing, strangely enough. Probably because their clothing was that expressive. On top of that, they were dressed extremely similar to each other. Every one of them had the same odd cone hat, blouse, and dress, except different colors. The first one I noticed was a blond, with black clothes. The second was dressed in white, and sported whitish-blue hair. The last had light brown hair, and was decked out in red.

That wasn't all I could see though; there were three instruments floating around them as well, as if grasped by some sort of spirit fire. A violin, a trumpet, and an electric keyboard; were they a band?

As the trio got closer, I noticed that despite strange color shifts, they looked somewhat similar to each other. They all had the same angled faces and body structure (this part was a bit weird to think of). They could have been triplets. Or simply a trio of siblings.

"The concert is supposed to be at the end of this week. We can't perform if we don't have a vocalist with us."

So they_ were_ a band. And they were in trouble.

"Don't worry, One-san. I'm sure we'll be able to find someone in time!"

"Yeah, chill out, will you?"

"You two are taking this in rather long strides. We only have _a week_. That means a week to find someone, and whatever remaining time we have to rehearse. It would have to be some kind of miracle for us to pull that off. Are we expecting someone to fall out of the sky?"

"We're already _in_ the sky, One-san."

"That's not my point…."

I could have said that they were arguing with one another, but it didn't feel like that was the case. They seemed too… close for that. More like they were passing ideas back and forth off each other. Well, not ideas, but as close to that as possible in this case.

Then, the one in white noticed me. "Hey, there's someone at the gate!" she called out to her companions.

I smiled a bit, and waved. And I silently noted that the three had to be ghosts as well if they were able to see me without assistance.

As a single unit, the three walked over. I stood up to meet them. I realized that, strangely enough, all three of them had eye colors that matched their hair.

Even weirder was that not one of them had an aura. I could sense them, definitely, but I couldn't see it. Were my abilities dulled because I was dead? Or was it something else?

The sister who noticed me waved energetically. I noted that at the peak of her cone hat was a large sun ornament. "Hi there! I'm Merlin. Who are you? And what are you doing outside the gate?"

I bowed to the three. "My name is Kaito. I'm supposed to be going to Hakugyokoro, but… I don't know how to get past the gate."

"The name's Lyrica," said the one in red, and had a shooting star on her hat. "And you do know you can just fly over the gate, right?"

I stared at them dumbly for a second.

"Seriously?"

"My sister is right," said the one in black, who had a crescent moon ornament atop her hat. "I'm Lunasa. The three of us often visit Hakugyokoro, and we do so every time by just flying right over the gate."

That just made me feel like a complete idiot. Really, how stupid could I be? If I had just _tried_ flying….

I sighed, scratching the back of my head. Man, this was embarrassing. "Well, thanks. I'll remember that any time I come back."

The three responses I got from them were all different.

Lunasa: a small smile, and "Of course."

Merlin: a cheerful smile, and "Anytime!"

Lyrica: a mocking smile, and "You better."

Gee. You wouldn't think they were sisters at all, if not for their looks. Weird.

Then Lunasa bowed to me. "I'm sorry, but the three of us must get going. We hope that your journey in the Netherworld proves eventful."

She nodded to her sisters, and the three took flight, heading straight upward. I considered watching them go, then averted my eyes the instant I realized I was going to look up their dresses.

Sheesh, how stupid was this?

* * *

_Oh you have _got_ to be kidding me…._

Flying over the gate was, obviously, no problem at all. Except that what I found behind the gate was definitely a problem.

It was a humongous flight of stairs.

I had thought that flying above the clouds was bad enough. This was kind of pushing it. Flying up the steps would be easy, naturally, but seriously? Was this even necessary?

I shook my head, resigning myself. It wasn't like there was any other path going to Hakugyokoro. And besides, at least I wasn't _walking_ up the stairs. That would almost be nightmarish.

Not wanting to stew in my own thoughts anymore, I kept going. The Netherworld seemed to reflect the state of the outside, and right now, it was just getting darker and darker. Soon, the only things I would have to guide me along the right path would be the spirits floating around, and the lanterns that were set up.

Thankfully, however, there were a lot of spirits. Even just directly in front of me, I wouldn't be able to count how many there were. Every single one was a pure white ball of smoke, and glowed a weird pinkish shade. But even as I watched, they started changing, taking the form of other things. Quite a few of them became fairies or humans, except white-washed I noticed, while some took the forms of animals. They only changed form for a few seconds before winking back into their usual snowball-like spirit state, and they all flip-flopped like that every ten seconds or so.

Needless to say, watching it happen was kind of hard on the eyes. The changes weren't in sequence, so everything changed on their own time. Within a minute, I could already feel a weird pushing against the back of my eyes.

Geez, this place would be Hell for an epileptic. Good thing it turned out I wasn't.

Not one of them took notice of me as I either passed them by or vice versa. All I could really notice was how different everyone looked. From what I saw, there was only one human village in Gensokyo. That is, to say nothing of any other villages that could have been out there, of course. But this was really a lot of people. It was hard to see past them some of the time.

That didn't deter from the actual scenery, though. Past all the spirits, on either side of the stairs, was practically a forest of cherry blossom trees. Everywhere around me were flower petals falling off the trees (it was a wonder I didn't get hit in the eye yet). Most of the trees weren't quite in full bloom yet. I figured that they had maybe only a few days before that. And with a little luck, they would hit full bloom right when the full moon came around.

Cherry blossom viewing under a full moon anyone?

Maybe I could stay long enough for that to happen.

Who could I see it with? Maybe the three sisters from before? Whoever Yukari's personal friend was… Nitori….

I smiled to myself. Yeah, this would be a pretty good place to stay for a while.

Suddenly, a weird chill ran through me. Like someone was walking on my grave. What wa-

_Shluk!_

I heard it first. And felt it next; I had been struck in a way that sent me flying towards the stairs.

"Gyaaaaa-"

THUD!

I found out in the next second that these stairs were special; spirits couldn't phase through them. I went tumbling down the steps uncontrollably for several seconds before crashing into a tree off to the side. I didn't know if that was supposed to be considered lucky or not.

So much pain!

I shakily lifted my left arm, which had been pressed over where I had just been struck.

My entire arm was drenched in white liquid. The blood of spirits.

What just….

My teeth clenched, almost ready to crack. Shit. I nearly got cut open just now!

"Hmph… to survive my _Slash of Present_ card, you must be really resilient."

A card? Someone attacked me with a spell card?

As well as I could with a huge slash running diagonally across my torso, I lifted my head.

The first thing I noticed, past the immense waves of pain coursing through me, was the long white katana with a large white plume coming out the pommel, held in the hands of a young girl in a green vest and dress. Her short cut hair was snowy white, with a large black bow coming out one side. Attached to her side were two sheathes, the larger one empty and the other, much smaller one containing a shorter blade.

The strangest thing I noticed, however, was the spirit. Floating and flying around the girl was a large ghost that looked exactly the same as any other, but was at least the same size as the girl herself.

She brandished her katana, and pointed it directly at my heart. "Any last words, evil spirit?"

What?

She thought I was… oh crap.

"N-no… you've got it wrong. I'm not… an evil spirit."

"How can you not be?" she denied. "My mistress felt something evil pass the boundary of life and death, and told me it was you. Do not try to lie to me!"

"I'm not!" I could feel myself fading fast. At best, I would just pass out, giving her the perfect window for killing me. "I can prove it."

"You… can? How?"

"I can vouch for him."

My head dropped as I sighed in relief. Geez, thanks a whole lot Yukari.

"Y-Yukari-sama!"

"Vigilant as ever, I see."

"Y-yes. Ojou-sama hasn't been feeling well as of late. I don't want her to be in the company of anything that may threaten her."

"That's very noble of you, but don't worry about Kaito, here. I'll explain the situation to Yuyuko in a bit. While I do that, please be a good girl and carry this boy up to Hakugyokoro?"

"At once, Yukari-sama!"

There was a _shink_ as the girl sheathed her katana, and I could hear her stepping closer.

"I'm sorry… for attacking you like that."

"It's… fine."

* * *

_Huh… something smells nice…._

A fresh, slightly pungent scent mixed in with something sweet was finding its way around my nose. It was sort of arousing in a way. Or at least, I was beginning to wake up.

Wait… wake up?

My eyes fluttered open slowly. Feeling started coming back to the rest of my body, and I could feel myself under a bedsheet. The ceiling was plain, like back in the shrine.

Where was I? Hakugyokoro? Yukari _had_ asked that girl to take me here, hadn't she?

With a bit of effort, I pushed myself to sit up. I was nestled into the corner of a blank room, with nothing in it but a set of doors – no doubt leading into a closet of some kind – and a small potted tree in another corner. The fact that it was rather spacious didn't help with how empty it was.

Maybe that girl from earlier….

I looked down, and noticed that my clothes had changed. Instead of a plain robe, I was now wearing a white shirt and chocolate brown trousers. I reached up my shirt to check my wound.

I was right; there was a new scar there. A single line that ran perpendicular to the claw marks from several days ago.

Geez, I was a magnet for trouble.

There was something I needed to ask someone, though; how long had I been out? No more than a couple days, probably. Seriously, I was spending more time knocked out or asleep than awake.

I whipped off the sheets and made to stand. A slight twang crossed my limbs, but I ignored it, walked over to the door, and slid it open. The sweet smell from earlier suddenly grew a bit stronger. What was it?

My head poked out, glancing both ways, but I stopped when I looked left.

_What the…._

I raised an eyebrow, sighing internally. Nitori was there, sleeping in a chair just outside the room.

So I was at least knocked out long enough for her to come the day after I arrived. That told me a little bit, at least.

I smiled. Well, she was here now. I was actually kind of happy about that. And now I knew where the scent was coming from. My aura sense wasn't gone; in fact, it seemed stronger than ever.

With one hand, I shook her lightly, and whispered "Nitori-chan. Wake up, Nitori-chan."

"Nnh…."

Her head lolled over to one side, and she opened her eyes. A couple of blinks, as if trying to get a bearing of her location. Then she looked up, and her eyes widened.

"Kaito-kun!" she blurted out in surprise, standing up and completely throwing off the blanket that had been draped over her.

I don't know why I didn't say anything for a couple seconds. In fact neither of us did. We just stood there quietly.

I acted first, putting a hand behind my head with an awkward smile on my face. "Uh… hey."

Nitori's eyes twinkled even as I stared at them. Something about me felt lost in those eyes for a couple seconds. Then….

BONK!

"Gah!"

I was so surprised by the sudden attack I fell backwards to the floor.

"Wh-what was that for?" I asked in exasperation, rubbing the sore spot on my head where her fist had struck.

She leaned down at me with her hands on her hips and a stern look on her face. The twinkle was still there, but I realized now that it felt more like concern than anything.

That, and maybe a bit of anger.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You got yourself hurt again!" She poked me in the chest at this.

I glanced away in shame. "Oh… that."

"That's all you have to say? 'Oh… that'? You nearly got cut in half!"

"I know, but-"

"Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

"No, but-"

"And Eirin-sama told you not to push yourself too much didn't she?"

"Yes, but-"

"But then you do exactly that!" She fell to her knees, hands on my legs. I tried not to overreact to that, staring into her stern face in order to ignore the fact she was essentially right on top of me.

The sweet smell of her aura was making it difficult, especially at such close proximity.

"B-but I was just-"

"Everywhere you go, you get hurt somehow!" She sounded ready to cry. But she didn't do that; she stayed strong, her eyes remaining completely clear. "What do you think Eirin-sama would say if she were here to see you?"

And she looked down. "How… how do you think I feel… seeing you like this right now?"

I paused for a moment. Then I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, and my expression softened. It really wasn't my place to argue against any of this. She was right. In more ways than one; even if I wasn't the one pushing myself around all the time – that part was left to Yukari – I always found trouble wherever I went, and no matter what it was, I always found myself in the thickest part of it. Even if I wasn't sure if I wanted to get involved, I always willingly went along with it anyways. And going through all that trouble all the time always got me hurt. Mystia's slash, Kaguya's burn, Yukari _splitting my soul_, and now this cut from that swordsman girl.

Man, when would it end?

Given my reputation and luck for it now, I'd say never.

I sighed lightly. "I'm sorry. I don't go out looking for trouble; it just finds me at every turn. I'm sorry if that's causing you trouble as well."

Nitori just kept staring down. I heard a quiet sniffle.

"You idiot…."

And she threw her arms around me in a tight embrace. I was so surprised that I nearly fell backwards again.

Quietly, she said "I'm glad you're okay."

Her head was next to me, so she didn't see the look I had that was supposed to be comforting. Instead, I just put my arms back around her.

Goose egg and scolding aside, this actually wasn't that bad. Maybe because despite the fact she suddenly became violently disposed for a brief moment, I could feel the love behind her words. She was only acting like this because she cared.

She certainly cared a lot if she was willing to knock me upside the head for it.

Suddenly, there was a loud gasp, and her arms were gone. Huh?

I let go as well. Her face was somehow frightened, and she was glancing back and forth between me and something behind me.

"Is… something wrong, Nitori-chan?"

She didn't respond. Instead, she just looked down at our legs.

A wave of red washed over her face.

"Kyaaah!"

CRACK!

"Gah!"

Stars popped up in my eyes as I stared upward.

What the….

I slowly and slightly painfully pushed myself up, rubbing the back of my head. I stared down the hall. Nitori was gone.

I realized what had happened then. She had shoved me, smacking my head against the solid wooden floor. Immediately after that, she had fled, running down the hall as fast as she could.

Why?

"Ahem…."

The loud clearing of a throat made my head snap backwards.

The swordsman girl was there, along with that huge ghost from before. She was scratching behind her ear in embarrassment, a bit flushed in her cheeks.

"Should I have… left you two alone?"

Damn it all….

* * *

"My apologies. I'm afraid I somewhat misinterpreted the situation there."

"No, it's not your fault. It still wasn't what it looked like though."

"I know that now."

The swordsman girl, whose name was apparently Youmu Konpaku, was walking with me down one of the halls, heading towards the main foyer or outside. Immediately after the whole incident outside 'my' room, I explained everything about both my presence in Hakugyokoro, and the reason why Nitori and I looked like that. During the latter half of the talk, I came to terms with something; these kinds of situations seemed to happen to me a lot. I mean, first with Reimu when Aya found me, then a second in Eientei, and a third at Rinnosuke's house. Was it just me, or did I have the worst luck in all of Gensokyo?

"Whew. That's good," I sighed. "But on a different note, why did you attack me while I was coming up to Hakugyokoro? And were you the one who brought me here?"

"Ah, that…." She glanced away in shame. As if to press the point home, her ghost – which she explained to actually be her own personal phantom half (how a half-ghost managed to manifest this way, I would never know) – actually shrank away behind its companion. "My ojou-sama has not been feeling well as of late, and I was simply trying to protect her. I was afraid that you had come to the afterworld with intentions to harm her. Yukari-sama explained that it wasn't necessary though, so yes, I was the one who carried you here."

"Carried me?" I asked, dumbfounded. "All the way up those stairs?"

"Yes. Aside from the fact that I can ride Myon," she gestured to her ghost half, "I'm actually much stronger than I look. Hold still."

"Eh?" I stopped, and she stepped behind me.

Suddenly, her hands secured themselves on my waist, and I was lifted several feet off the ground.

"Whoa!" What the hell?

And I plopped solidly back on the floor. I stumbled a bit before regaining my footing.

"Wow…."

I turned to Youmu. "Sorry about that. I wasn't expecting that at all."

She smiled at me. "Very few people ever do."

"Well I don't blame them. I mean, you're practically a head and a half shorter than me."

"Don't rub it in!"

Oops. "Sorry!"

She peered at me critically out of one eye. Then turned away, continuing down the hall. "Let's go."

"Y-yes!"

We kept walking for about half a minute before Youmu spoke again.

"From what I know, your time in Gensokyo has not been the most enjoyable, has it?"

"Eh? Well…."

The question was a bit off-setting. To be honest, I wasn't exactly sure how to answer. On one hand, getting hurt all the time was definitely not fun. Sure, I came out of it okay in the end, but I still didn't like getting tossed around so much by Yukari only to wind up receiving more scars in the process. I was afraid that Yukari would eventually send me careening into some situation that I couldn't get out of.

On the other hand, however, I was still having at least a decent time in Gensokyo. During the times when everything wasn't out to get me, I could actually enjoy the fact I was here. Despite this place not being my home,I was used to the fact that I was slowly growing more and more accustomed to it, and I even felt a bit reluctant to go back to the outside.

In fact, how would I be able to leave, with so many amazing people in here?

The gnawing fact they were all girls notwithstanding, of course.

That led to another question: if I was really going to stay here for longer than a few weeks, then wouldn't I have to make a choice? Between the girls I met?

Gah, that wasn't a question for a time like this. I was only in my late teens! Besides, how would I be able to make a choice with so many to choose from?

Wait… okay, that was a stupid question to ask. Never mind that.

"Kaito-san?"

"Huh?" Oops. "Oh, sorry. I zoned out there. Um… I wouldn't say being here in Gensokyo isn't enjoyable, really…."

I gave a sheepish smile. "I just wish trouble didn't find me at every turn. It's like no matter where I go, everything is out to get me."

"Would that explain all the other scars you have on your chest? Along with your leg?"

"My leg?"

I glanced down and pulled up both sides of my trousers. On the side of my lower left leg was a jagged, circular scar running along my entire calf. I realized it must have been from my time in Hell, when Utsuho blew up my leg. I'd never noticed that a scar had set in place there.

"You never noticed that?" Youmu pointed out a bit needlessly.

"Yeah, I never did. Odd."

I looked back and just shrugged. It didn't seem like it was much of a problem.

Youmu shrugged back, and we kept walking.

"So what exactly is Hakugyokoro anyways?" I asked. It was kind of stupid, since this was supposed to be the Netherworld, but I kind of wanted to know.

"Hakugyokoro is a specific dimension of the Netherworld where Yuyuko-sama and I live in. Though the Netherworld as a whole contains spirits, this is the place they come when specifically awaiting judgement for whether they will be sent to enlightenment, or return to the mortal plane. To put it a different way, you could call it the capital city of the Netherworld, where all gather eventually."

"Huh…." The capital city? With all these cherry blossoms around….

The capital city of flowers in the sky?

Odd way to put it, but it certainly fit. But why did it ring a bell?

I didn't have much time to wonder about that. All of a sudden, something tickled my nose.

It was a smell. A rather putrid one, at that.

And it was very, very familiar.

Don't tell me….

I stopped in place. It took a couple seconds for Youmu to realize I had done so, and she turned to me with a questioning look. "Is something the matter, Kaito-san?"

My eyes narrowed a bit, staring off over her head. Where was that scent coming from? A different room? Outside? Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Then the smell disappeared, as quickly as it came.

I didn't want to say anything. No need to make any trouble after only being here for so long. I shook my head, smiling innocently. "No, it's nothing."

She stared intently at me for another couple seconds. Then seemed to decide it better to just not bother with it, and continued walking.

"Come. I would like to introduce you to my mistress."

"Yes."

A little bit more down the hall, Youmu exited a sliding door and turned left. The door led out on to a porch lining the entire outside of the house.

I stopped for a moment. The scenery was incredible. The entire felt like it had come straight from an ancient Japanese home – if in a bit of a stereotyped or contrived way. A perfectly paved rock garden with various plants and trees sprouting from specific places strewn across the yard. Little ponds that streamed off with tiny waterfalls into other little ponds. A bamboo cup that made a _doink_ sound every time it hit the rock immediately behind it.

Still, something wasn't quite right. It was as if something was in the very air that tainted this scenery. I wasn't quite smelling anything, yet I could just feel it in myself that something was very, very _wrong_. What was it?

"This way please."

"Eh? Oh, right. Coming."

Youmu guided me along the porch, going all the way down close to the very end of the path. It was hard to believe the garden was this large, though I was pretty sure this wasn't all.

Then I smelled it again. That putrid scent that I recognized earlier. It wasn't very strong at the moment, but I could feel it getting stronger as I went along. But I didn't stop walking.

Then I saw it. Near the end of the porch, a paper door was closed. And coming out of it, at the top, was a thin trail of black smoke. Youmu wasn't taking me to that room, was she?

I didn't have time to ask that question. No sooner did I think it to myself when she stopped just outside of it. She turned to me.

"Please remember to be respectful."

As out of it as I was, I could still manage an answer, though it took a bit of willpower to keep my voice steady being so close to the source of something dark. "Yes, Youmu-san. Thank you."

She nodded. Then she raised a hand to knock on the wooden planks of the door. "Ojou-sama. Is it okay to come in?"

A bright cheery voice came back. More or less the opposite of what I had expected. "Come in, Youmu~ You have our guest with you, right?"

"That's right."

"Then please, bring him in as well."

"Yes, ojou-sama."

Her hands clasped the dividing edges of the sliding door, and pulled them open.

_Fwooooosh…._

What the… oh my god!

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

Holy shit. This came out so. Goddamned. SLOW!

_"Ha ha ha. So zetta slow!"_

Shut up, Minamimoto! No one wants you here right now!

*Kicks Sho into portal leading back to the UG*

Okay, crappy joke aside, he has a point there. This chapter seriously just took _days_ to write. I don't understand why; I just sort of hit a slump, and simply refused to write.

I blame my part-time job and new-found interest in Tales of the Abyss (I lucked out at GameStop, and managed to find a used copy for it. Score~) for this. I'm picking back up the pace now, but seriously, describing Hakugyokoro and Youmu/Yuyuko's home is _hard_ for some reason.

Also, I was planning to write some kind of epic confrontation (part of which involves a bit of 'fantastic arousal' via Myon) with Youmu instead of just getting owned by her _Slash of Present_ card in a single shot, but I realized that it simply wasn't possible, since her Roukanken is supposed to be lethal for pretty much any and all spirits, meaning even a spell card duel wouldn't fully protect Kaito from its effects. As it is, however, at the very least I have managed to make it all the way to Hakugyokoro, so I can be happy with this.

Well, I just hope the next one isn't _nearly_ this slow. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	35. Chapter 35: Will Of The Ghost

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 35: Will Of The Ghost**

"Hmph!"

"Eh? Kaito-san, is something wrong?"

I couldn't respond. My hand was clamped over my mouth and nose, trying not to breath in the horrid stench. My knees felt weak, and I almost fell face first. At the very least, I collapsed to my knees.

What the… was this….

"Kaito-san, what's wrong?"

"Ngh… th… this…."

I couldn't hold back anymore; I vomited.

"Kaito-san! Are you sick? Do you need help?"

My breathing was heavy, ragged. Even if I could make out a response, I wouldn't have said it, with my throat burning. But I could control myself a little better. The smell was going away. It wasn't so disgusting, so overpowering, anymore. I tried to breathe more normally. It was working… somewhat. I desperately wanted to leave now, but my legs simply didn't feel like they had the strength.

One of my eyes was still shut in pain as I tried to speak. It was difficult doing so; I was still gagging heavily due to the smell.

"I… I'll… be fine. Something… just… came over me."

I stared down at my own vomit in shame. "I'm… I'm sorry. I'll… find something to clean this up."

"No, don't," Youmu denied. "Stand aside."

She pulled me a bit, and dragged me over to kneel a short ways away. Then she took a couple steps back, facing out the door. She knelt, drawing and slashing with her katana in a single fluid movement. An iaijutsu technique.

I practically felt the wind pass by, and I was pretty sure that if I had stood in the way of it, the wind probably would have nearly cut me in two. Even without looking, I could already tell that she had probably blown away all the vomit with that single sword slash. Damn, talk about mundane utility.

She resheathed her blade, and came to me. "Do you need rest?"

I shook my head. "No. I'll be fine."

"Very well then."

She stood back up, and that was when I heard it. It sounded like… clapping? Applause?

I turned to the source, and there was a person sitting with her legs underneath a futon. Her kimono was sky blue, with little cloud patterns printed along the front. A matching hat was worn over bright pink hair, with a ghost headband – or rather, a _hitaikakushi,_ I should say – encircling it. She looked to be in her late twenties or so, with a couple of tiny ghost bobbing back and forth around her. The aura she had was a deep shade of pink – much darker than Kaguya's. But unlike every other identifiable aura I'd felt up to this point, her's was obvious, yet had some kind of dark vibe around it. Something that felt like it was underneath all the normality on the surface. What was it?

"Nicely done, Youmu~" she cooed. "I haven't seen you do something like that in quite a while."

"O-ojou-sama, what are you saying!" The swordsman girl looked down in embarrassment.

"Oh nothing~" the woman giggled. "Run along now. I'd like to speak with Kaito alone."

"If you say so, ojou-sama."

Youmu bowed to both of us, and left the room, sliding the door shut. A few loud steps on the wood later, she was gone.

I moved from my spot so I was kneeling next to the futon, and I bowed from there. "Greetings, um… ojou-sama."

I had no other way of addressing her, so I thought it safer to just use the same honorific as Youmu.

"Oh you don't have to call me that," the woman replied, smiling gently. "Please, just call me Yuyuko."

Then her smile grew wider. "Or if you'd like, you can call me Yuyu-chan~"

"Er…." My eyes glanced away awkwardly. Was that really any way to refer to an older woman? "No thank you. I'll just… call you Yuyuko-sama."

"Aw, but that still sounds so formal," Yuyuko whined, putting on a pouting face.

Geez, why was she acting like this? Was she some kind of adult child?

"Oh, I'm just kidding," she teased, resuming her usual cheery smile. "You can call me whatever you want!"

Man, it was goin to be hard, dealing with someone as whimsical as that.

"But enough of that."

I perked up. Yuyuko looked almost exactly the same as before, but something different was reflected in her eyes. It held some kind of seriousness that I couldn't quite catch.

Nor comprehend; it felt powerful enough to knock me off balance with minor confusion. This was the same whimsical ghost that had joked about her name just a few seconds ago?

"You can feel it, can't you?"

"E-eh?" Feel what?

"Yukari explained to me your power to see the auras of those around you. A peculiar power for a human to have, but an interesting one, nonetheless. And from what she said, your reign over this ability is almost absolute. You can see that which even those with similar power cannot. So what do you see?"

"Uh…."

Truthfully, I couldn't tell. It was something that felt nestled into the back of my mind, where I could barely see it. I could tell it was there, but itendtifying it felt impossible.

"Here."

Yuyuko reached over, placing two fingers on my eyelids. Being so close, my senses were filled with an overpowering scent of fresh cherry blossoms. "Look not with your eyes, Kaito. Look with your mind. Your heart and soul. And tell me what you see."

She pulled down, closing my eyes for me, and lifted her hand away.

I breathed slowly, calming myself from the terrifying wave of darkness that had washed over me earlier. And I focused, on the very point.

In my mind's eye, I could see Yuyuko. Her aura had shrunk, adapting to the shape of her person, all the way down to her legs under the futon. I could almost feel myself blush, since the way it revealed her figure left me mentally staring at someone with one of the most beautiful bodies I'd ever seen. Put simply, I was sure that out of everyone I'd ever met, Yuyuko would be the only one – besides maybe Kaguya – to fit the 'hourglass body'.

It was pretty embarrassing seeing her like this, to say the least.

"Now now, don't stare too much~"

I winced. Damnit, she wasn't helping.

I did my best to divert my attention, focusing on the point I was supposed to be looking for. Something that had felt off in my initial scan.

Then I felt it. Something that very nearly escaped my notice. It seemed to be centered around Yuyuko's heart. It felt heavy, foreboding. Like some kind of cancer that had latched itself onto her very being.

"You can see it, right?"

"Um… well, yes." I opened my eyes once more. "I see something. Or, not really _see_ it, but I know it's there."

"Then I shall explain…

"Long ago, when I was still alive, I had the power to control spirits. I couldn't quite see them, but I knew they were there. With a simple thought, I could make someone do anything I wanted. I could make them dance. Do a cartwheel. Eat a dumpling as large as a dog. Anything at all, as long as it was possible for the person in question."

Her eyes grew somber. "But this power frightened me. I didn't enjoy being able to control others like this. I tried my absolute best to keep from using it, but at some times, it was inevitable. I would wind up using my power, whether on accident, or sometimes, even for my own selfish desires.

"However, my power did not regress in strength. It only grew stronger, to the point where, on a whim, I would instantly bring death to any person. I wouldno longer only control them; if I wished it, they would simply die. This power remains with me even now; if I wished it, I could cut the ties between your current soul and your physical body, and you would stay here in Hakugyokoro until you reached enlightenment, or were sent to Hell."

The power to cause death?

I stared at Yuyuko with a look that held two things: fear and awe. This was just incredible.

"Because of my power, I didn't want to live anymore, and one day, on a cold winter day, I killed myself under a cherry blossom tree. The people of the village, seeing an opportunity, used my body as a seal, in order to lock away a great evil that was terrorizing the land. Now, if you would please…."

She slipped off the futon and held out a hand, asking me to help her get up.

"Wait a moment, if you were resting in bed, shouldn't you stay? I can ask Youmu-san to-"

"No. Even Youmu doesn't know of this. I fear what she may do once she hears of it. Please, help me."

I didn't feel very comfortable doing this. If even Yuyuko's assistant didn't know about something like this, then what right did I have? But I couldn't just turn her down, could I?

I gave her my hand and stood, pulling her up with me. She stumbled a bit then righted herself. It turned out she wasn't much shorter than I was.

"Thank you. Please, take me outside."

She wasn't expecting me to actually lead her out, was she?

* * *

I couldn't believe how long the walk was to get out of the main house. Even the shortest way out took a couple minutes, involving at least two other hallways, and passing through three rooms. I'd have to get a better look at the house from above later. It seemed pretty ridiculous to have such a big house when there were only two occupants most of the time.

Still, at least I got to get a good look outside. For the most part, it looked pretty much exactly the same as any other place in Gensokyo; green fields stretching off as far as the eye could see, with a couple of paved paths for the residents of Hakugyokoro. Trees were everywhere, along with various other fauna. Spirits floated around in groups, or alone, flitting back and forth between trees, plants, and even circling around me on occasion. Sometimes, a spirit woul join Yuyuko, and another would leave.

The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. A clear blue sky and gentle sun bathed the field in a comforting light. Cherry blossom petals dropped off the trees on occasion, filling the air with a tantalizing smell.

Truthfully, I could have said it felt downright romantic, even in the day.

Too bad I felt uncomfortable as hell with Yuyuko on my arm like this.

"You seem antsy. Is something wrong?"

"Er…." I looked away in embarrassment. "No, of course not."

"Ufufufu~ You don't have to sound so bashful, you know. I'm only holding onto you because I need the support.

"Unless of course…." She clung a little tighter, and I swore I could feel my arm press a bit more against her chest. "There's something else that you want."

"No no, that's fine, Yuyuko-sama!" I was having a hard enough time as it was!

The ghost giggled. "Okay then~"

"A-anyway…" I continued. "Where are we supposed to be going?"

"It's just a little further. Keep going."

We kept walking for a minute, and I could see a clearing up ahead where the path widened out. And there was something big.

Something big that I didn't like. It felt like I was hitting the main source of some of the troubles that had been plaguing me all this time. It was crawling at the back of my mind, somehow, and it refused to let me leave it alone.

Finally, we reached the clearing.

And in the middle of it was the largest tree I'd ever seen.

Trying to measure how tall it was would be an impossible task worthy of Kaguya. Even just one of its roots, which all remained above the surface, punching their way into the ground, had to be at least three times my own height. The bark was a dirty burnt black with flecks of brown. And spawning on almost every branch on the entire tree were cherry blossoms. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them, all sitting there unopened, waiting for the right time. Seeing it hit full bloom would be incredible.

And yet seeing the blossoms only brought to me a sense of apprehension. The tree wasn't all that it seemed to be. Something was behind it.

It felt like an evil presence inside the tree.

"You can feel it?"

"Eh? Yes, Yuyuko-sama. I can."

At this, Yuyuko let go of my arm and slowly made her way over to one of the roots. A single hand touched it, and I could feel something pass between the two. She drifted silently upward, touching back down on the top of the root, and she continued walking over to the base of the tree. I followed along, remaining a short distance behind.

What was that thing that had passed between Yuyuko and the tree? It felt like the two were somehow connected to one another; the thing that had passed felt exactly the same as the presences hanging behind both.

Then, Yuyuko stopped, and turned back to me. Even now, she was still smiling that same smile she had when I first saw her.

"This… this is the Saigyou Ayakashi. It is a curses tree, for within it sleeps a demon of immense strength. For eight hundred years, it has slept, attempting to use its power to coax the living under its branches so it may sap away their spirit. It has never succeeded in gaining enough power so it may free itself, for this is the world of the dead. While the dead have some power, they are not sufficient for the ayakashi under the tree. And for all the years it's been under there, it has never awoken, nor has the tree ever bloomed.

"At least… not until a year ago."

"A year ago?" Whoa. This was incredible. But the sinister sense was coming back. What did she mean?

"You see… I forgot about my past life. For many years, I lived without a fragment of very important knowledge concerning the Saigyou Ayakashi. For almost all the time I've been alive, this three has never bloomed a single cherry blossom. And I knew that there had been a body sealed, buried within the tree for some reason. So I hatched a plan to have Youmu gather the essence of spring from the outside of Hakugyokoro so the tree would bloom fully, releasing the body that was sealed within. My actions delayed the coming of spring itself, and for this reason, Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya all came to Hakugyokoro to stop me. Unbeknownst to them, however, with them came the last essences of spring I needed to make the tree reach full bloom. In a one-on-three battle, I managed to defeat them, and from them I took the spring I needed and gave it to the Saigyou Ayakashi. The tree reached full bloom for the first time in eight hundred years. It was glorious…."

A tiny bit of Yuyuko's smile shrunk away. "But everything went wrong. The body was released from its slumber, but so too was the ayakashi sealed within. And I realized who was sealed then. It was the part of my memory that was missing."

She remained silent, as if reminiscing about the incident. My mind worked out the rest.

"The one sealed under the tree was you, wasn't it, Yuyuko-sama?"

The ghost nodded. "My power over spirits and death gave me a powerful connection with spirits. Using this knowledge, the humans from eight hundred years ago took my body and used it to lock away the ayakashi that had terrorized them for so long. But since my body was sealed in such a way, my spirit could not move on towards enlightenment, Heaven, or Hell. I was reincarnated here, as you see me now, and under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Yama Judge of Gensokyo, I was appointed the queen of the Netherworld. A fitting title for one who would remain here for the rest of eternity."

She turned back to face the Saigyou Ayakashi. I found myself staring at her in complete awe. She had to suffer through so much just so she could be used to lock away a monstrous tree with her own body.

But that meant….

"But… the tree is gaining power again… isn't it?"

Her head dropped. For some time she said nothing. But when she spoke, I could tell she was trying to keep her voice as level as possible. I didn't know if it was because she was crying, or some other factor.

"That's right. That day, more than a year ago, the seal was broken. I lost control of my body as the ayakashi attempted to completely break free of its prison. But through the efforts of Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya, it was resealed. For the time being after that, the crisis was averted. But the initial break had left cracks in the seal, and I believe the ayakashi is able to steadily gain back its power through those. Even now, it is still feeding, biding its time as it continues to make its way back to full power. The evidence is in the cherry blossoms blooming. I believe it will reach its peak by the end of the week, when the full moon comes out."

She raised her head to look up at the destructively beautiful cherry blossoms spawning on the branches. "And once that happens, I will cease to exist. And all of Gensokyo will be in grave danger."

In a single fluid motion, Yuyuko turned away from the tree, striding back over to look up at me.

"For now, there is no stopping it. No matter what we do, the ayakashi will break out by the end of the week. Perhaps one day, the people of Gensokyo will find a way to seal it away once more, or even destroy it. All I ask of you is that you don't tell Youmu of any of this. She has been my servant for so long and, if you don't mind the joke, I love her to death. Please, say not a word of this to her. Not until you deem it absolutely necessary to do so, or you cannot hide the secret any longer. Promise me."

Staring into her maroon eyes, I wanted to say no. Everything was wrong with this. I was just some person Yukari had thrown into Gensokyo for whatever reasons she had. I had no right to hear about any of this at all. Yet Yuyuko had just confided in me everything she could not bear to tell even her closest servant.

What else could I do?

As disgusted as I felt in doing so, I slowly nodded my head. "Okay."

Her smile returned. "Thank you."

She walked past me. "Come, Kaito. We should go back. You're going to have a hard time explaining to Youmu why we went out for a walk like this, you know?"

Yeah….

Wait a second….

"Hey, why do I have to be the one that explains!"

Was she _asking_ for me to get cut in half again?

* * *

_What the hell am I going to do…?_

That question had been bouncing around my head for the entire day since Yuyuko and I got back form visiting the Saigyou Ayakashi. Explaining to Youmu the whole situation while keeping up my promise to Yuyuko was… difficult, to say the very least. I was pretty sure it took at least fifteen minutes to shake off all of her inquiries despite how much I insisted that nothing happened there (she seemed _really_ intent on making me out as some kind of criminal). Once that was done, and a couple more hours passed uneventfully, the three of us joined Nitori at the table for a rather large dinner – most of which was eaten, as odd as it was to watch, by Yuyuko herself, who had an appetite large enough for maybe three people (admittedly, all that food had to go somewhere).

Now, however, it was night, and there wasn't much else to do. Yuyuko had excused herself early from the dinner table (an action that outright shocked Youmu for some reason), and once everyone was finished with their food, we all took our dishes to the kitchen, where Youmu said she would wash them herself.

"Why don't you take a bath for the time being?" Youmu had suggested. "There's a bath house behind here, and there are lots of supplies for washing up there."

"Sure, why not? Nitori-chan do you-"

I turned towards the door, but she was already gone.

"-want… to go first?" I finished, saying it to open air. Wow, she certainly left in a hurry. Though I couldn't quite blame her; it must have been awkward sitting at the table with me and Youmu. Thankfully Yuyuko had no idea what transpired, otherwise she probably would have teased all three of us about it.

"If your girlfriend does not wish to bathe yet, then-"

"Hey, since when was she my girlfriend?"

"Wasn't that the reason she was hugging you in the middle of the hall like that?"

"No! I thought I explained that nothing was going on between the two of us."

That was only a half-truth; we were in a relationship, sure, but not a romantic one. Not that Youmu knew that, but still….

Geez, where were people getting these ideas?

"I… see," she said in a tone I couldn't quite identify. It seemed caught between confusion and something else. "Well, if your… ahem, friend, doesn't wish to bathe yet, then why don't you go on ahead first?"

"Um… alright then."

And that was that.

The bath house was puny in comparison to the main house itself, but was still fairly big compared to the bath house I had gone to the night Nitori and I had stayed at Rinnosuke's place. I was in the guy's side of the house, gathering the things I would take in with me; a towel, some liquid I could only assume was shampoo, and a spare robe I would change into once I was done. After that, I made my way down the halls, and stepped outside into the open air bath.

I could only assume that half the size of the house was comprised of the actual bathing area. There was one huge hot spring pool right smack in the center of the giant rock complex that made up the bathing area, with one or two smaller pools off to the side. Copious amounts of steam wafted out of the pool, draping the entire place with a semi-thick blanket of white that reduced visibility to maybe ten feet before everything started getting blurry.

It was pretty amazing, to say the least. The one back outside had been nothing like this.

With careful steps, I slowly walked over to the largest pool in the entire complex, making sure not to slip and crack my head open on the rocks. It was pretty slow going, even though the rocks weren't the most slippery ones I'd ever treaded on, but I wasn't taking any chances, being barefoot.

But then I saw something odd. Through the mists, I saw a shadow. What was that? Or rather, _who_ was that, maybe?

Something in the back of my head was telling me that something was wrong. That getting closer was a very bad idea. I wanted to obey it. But my curiosity was getting the better of me.

Against all my better judgement, I kept walking, my eyes squinting to get a better view. The shadow began adapting to a form, and I could see little details.

Wait a moment… was that…

Pink hair?

Oh shit!

My feet pulled the brakes, ready to start running back before I was seen. Unfortunately, I stopped to fast, and I slipped on the well-lubricated rocks.

"Whoa!"

The instant I regained my footing, I clapped my hand over my mouth. Oh god, _please_ tell me she didn't hear me.

My prayers weren't heard. The head of pink hair turned, and a pair of maroon eyes saw me.

"Oh!" the voice called out, as if pleasantly surprised. "Is that you, Kaito?"

Crap, crap, crap! Just start backing away slowly. _Now!_

"No no, don't go~" Yuyuko said. "You were bold enough to come out here while I was in the bath, so why not stay?"

"T-th-that's not how it is at all!" I denied vehemently, my hand now pressed tightly against my eyes. I had expected her to just scream at me. I had no idea if this reaction terrified me more or not. "I-I just happened to walk in here, I'm sorry! I-I'll be leaving now."

"No, please, stay. I can wash your back for you~" she said in a singsong voice.

"No, i-it's quite alright. I can do it myself la-"

_Foomp._

I couldn't back up any further; I had hit some kind of big fluffy wall.

The hand that wasn't held over my eyes tried pressing backwards, and felt the fluff all the way out beyond my arms length. What the….

As quickly as possible, I whipped away my hand and snapped my head over to try and see what was behind me.

It was a wall of spirits blocking my way.

Oh no….

"Please, I insist," Yuyuko called out past the steam. "I've taken baths with Youmu's grandfather before, you know. I don't mind taking a bath with a man."

For just a second, I was confused. Youmu's grandfather?

But that didn't matter. I shook my head vigorously. "I-it's fine, really! I can ju-yah!"

The wall of spirits suddenly moved, shoving me along. I tried to get decent footing to push back, but the rocks were too slippery.

"No no no, please don-WAAAAAA-"

PWA-SHOOM!

"_Grgle…_ _glub… _blah!"

My breathing was heavy, having been dumped into the water so unceremoniously. The wall didn't pick up any speed; instead, it decided to pick _me_ up and fling me into the pool face first. The water was fairly deep, so I didn't hit the bottom or anything, but the impact was enough to knock the breath out of me.

God, what was Yuyuko _thinking?_ This was no place for me to be!

But before I could catch enough of my breath to start making my way out of the pool, something large and soft pressed against my back and a pair of arms wrapped around my neck.

"Come now, Kaito, don't be so shy~" came the playful voice right next to my ear as waves of red crashed around my cheeks. "No one else is here, so it's quite alright."

That was _exactly_ what I was worried about. No one else was here, which meant it was the perfect opportunity for someone to walk in and completely misinterpret _everything._ And I had a nagging feeling that the misinterpretation would end with me getting either slapped or slashed to bits.

Goddamnit, I should have just backed away when I saw Yuyuko's shadow!

But now that I was here, there was no escape. I was in no state to try and break free of Yuyuko's grip.

My lip trembled for a bit. God, this was horrible.

I sighed, resigning myself to my fate. "Fine… let's just get it over with."

If someone came in here, I was _so_ screwed.

"Splendid!" Yuyuko cheered. "Honestly, ever since Youki left, it's been awfully dull without a man around that I can tease. Teasing Youmu is fine, but it's just not the same~"

I refused to open my eyes, so Yuyuko had to take me by the hand and guide me all the way back to the far edge of the pool. Once we got there, she made me sit on the edge of the pool, feet dangling into the water, so she could wash my back for me.

"So how does it feel?" she asked candidly as her hands and a towel rapped back and forth across my bare back.

"I-it's… o-okay, I guess…" I answered shakily. It was a fairly honest answer, given that she was helping me get clean, and was being gentle about it. The thing was, my aura sense refused to leave me alone, and I was continuously being assaulted by a mental image of Yuyuko's aura behind me. I was thankful for the fact my back was turned towards her; I didn't want her to see what the hell my hormones were making me do.

"That's good. Please, Kaito, yukkuri shiteitte ne~ If this is the way you're going to act around the women you meet, then how will you ever find a girlfriend?"

"W-wh-what the hell! What are you talking about?"

"Lift your arms," she commanded, and I did so. "I'm saying that if you don't start being a little more confident, you'll never be able to get the girl you like. One day, you might have something like this happen again, and you might have to take a much more dominant role then."

I had an aching feeling that she was right about that, given my luck.

"You do have someone you like, don't you?"

"W-well… not in particular, no…."

"Really now…" she jabbed in a suspicious tone. I felt the need to groan.

"Is it that kappa girl?"

"W-what!" I exclaimed at her inquiry. It took quite a bit of my willpower to not snap my head backwards in disbelief. "N-n-no, of course not!"

"Oh you don't have to sound so flustered~" she teased, her hands removing themselves from my person before coming back a moment later, scrubbing shampoo into my hair. "There's some kind of relationship between the two of you already. I can tell~"

"Th-that's because… well…." My voice failed me.

"Because of what?"

"Because…."

As much as it hurt, I gave her the answer she seemed to want. In the middle of the explanation, Yuyuko finished helping me wash and – to my great embarrassment – said that now it was my turn to wash _her_.

"My, what an impressive story," Yuyuko cooed as I scrubbed her back. I insisted that while I felt at least comfortable enough to help wash her back and hair (and I still wasn't very comfortable, period), I was _not_ going to wash her sides because of where my hands were going end up if I wasn't careful. To my surprise and extreme relief, she complied.

"You know…." The ghost turned to look at me with a face I couldn't read. "This sounds so much like a plot for an aspiring love drama~"

I just grumbled at that, refusing to speak further.

"But I can't exactly blame you. Nitori really is a nice girl isn't she?"

I made no indication I heard her at all this time. Yet she was right. Or, as 'right' as I would let her be, since I still felt that she was just teasing me, and that if I said anything, she would instantly tease me more.

"It must be nice… to have someone you can care for like that."

I almost stopped scrubbing her back at that. It sounded so sorrowful.

"I was… never really able to bond with anyone when I was still alive. Anyone except Yukari, actually. When I was alive, I was resting under an old cherry blossom tre, when Yukari suddenly came out to greet me. The two of us became friends very quickly. We talked often, chatting about various things; my life in Japan, and Gensokyo. Even though she was ancient, she loved talking with me, calling it an 'excursion from her daily boredom'. After I commited suicide and became the queen of the Netherworld, Yukari was one of the first people to meet me."

Her eyes glowed in a way I couldn't identify as she looked down in reminiscence. "I never really had to care for Yukari that much, since she was a powerful youkai even then. I wonder how she felt when she found out I had died….

"And now, it's almost the same as it was eight hundred years ago. I'm about to die, and Yukari will live on."

I didn't even noticed that my hands had stopped moving. I think I lost the will to do so, with such a depressing story falling on my ears.

Then, before I could react, a pair of arms took my head and pressed it against something soft. When I realized it was Yuyuko doing it, and that my head was being pressed into her chest, I was ready to freak out. But I knew I couldn't. Not without disrespect. So I quieted myself, refraining from attempting to break her grip.

"Thank you for listening to me Kaito," she said quietly. "I'm sorry for forcing myself upon you like this. These are the ramblings of an old ghost. A ghost that is about to die. I'm glad I was able to tell someone about this. Something too painful for me to even tell Youmu. Please, forgive me."

Then she released me. I sucked in a bit of air hungrily, not realizing that in order to keep from being disrespectful, I had heald my breath.

"I will be going now. Please, relax and enjoy the hot spring."

Her hand briefly brushed mine as she took back the towel she had given me. The rythymic tapping of feet against rocks, and Yuyuko was gone.

I didn't move very much for a few moments. Then, a little numbly, I folded up my own towel, which had been lying crumpled up on the floor, and silently slipped myself back into the hot spring pool, submerging myself all the way up to my neck. And again, the same question came back.

_What the hell am I going to do…?_

This was just too much for me to take in all at once. I was basically told, over the course of a day, the fate of all of Gensokyo, and a small portion of a centuries-old ghost's past. I was being dumped with the responsibility of keeping all of this a secret from the servant who was supposed to be the one and only confidant of that same ghost, and I was left with a bad taste in my mouth not just because of that but because of how horribly bad the situation was growing. Now I knew that – horrible pun aside – the root of the problem rest inside and beneath the Saigyou Ayakashi. But what good did that do me? What good did it do _anyone?_ And who else knew about this besides me? No one?

Why was I the one being dumped with all this?

I sighed, sinking into the water a little more so my nose was nearly under. I realized that the sides were high enough for me to sit on while the pool got deeper as it got closer to the center.

For maybe a minute, I wallowed in my own thoughts, pondering my potential courses of action. But of course, as was standard for a situation like this, the more I thought, the less I got.

Then, suddenly, something hit my mind, and then my ears. What was that?

Were those…?

Oh hell no!

I dove beneath the surface and pushed off the wall, swimming with a skillful breaststroke across the pool. Once I'd gone as far as I could without coming up for air, I resurfaced. I was a good distance down. More than far enough so that the person there would not be able to see me for the steam.

Geez, why did I have to be here when Nitori was coming in?

No doubt that by now, she was already in the opposite end of the pool, completely unaware of my presence.

Completely unaware that I could….

As hard as I could without making it so loud as to reveal my presence, I slapped myself. Damnit, this aura sense wasn't a blessing anymore!

But despite everything, I couldn't quite stop staring at her, even if it was only mentally. Something about her just felt alluring for some reason. Some reason that felt different from the way I looked at the other girls of Gensokyo. Her looks were rather different from the other denizens that would be considered 'beautiful' by most any other boy. Undoubtedly, concerning some people like Yuyuko and Kaguya, I could never agree more. Yet Nitori held around her something that didn't feel nearly the same. It was more of the feeling that she was 'cute' and that it held some greater attraction for me than the more 'beautiful' people.

God, my mind was playing tricks on me again.

Making as little noise as possible, I dove beneath the water, swimming diagonally to reach a side of the pool where it would still be difficult for me to be seen, and I could escape without her ever knowing I was there.

I was lucky enough to actually make it to my destination instead of accidentally going off course and crashing right into the kappa. Once I was out of the pool and making my way back to the main bath house, where I would be safe from all form of assault, I stole a glance back to the edge where Yuyuko and I had been sitting only moments before. I could tell Nitori was still there.

Suddenly, as if to comply with some heaven-sent wish or something, the steam began thinning out. Through the steam, I could see Nitori. She was using her aquamancy abilities, picking up water and washing it over herself.

My teeth clenched as my cheeks flushed. And I turned to walk away.

It was going to be _really_ hard talking to her for a while after this. I could just tell.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

Well... here it is. The next chapter.

I'm... actually not very sure what I can say about this one. I mean, there's a lot to try and report about, I stuck so much in. Yet I don't really feel the need to really say anything. Guess the urge to try and find something to talk about has died for a while.

However, I will say something concerning a couple of reviews I received for the previous chapter (yes, I'm looking at _you_, Wrathkal and Ashley3wl). I have two counterarguments as to why 'Kaito's' thoughts are running the way they are, even in this chapter. One: _we_ know what's supposed to be going on in terms of the love story plot, but _'he'_ does not, so being a hormone-filled guy, it's only natural (in my opinion) that 'he' would be thinking about things along those lines. Two: due to certain experiences from about five months ago concerning my current-but-back-then-not-my-girlfriend, I found out that when it comes to romantic situations or picking up the signs I may like someone or vice versa, I'm actually rather dense. So yeah.

Don't worry; slowly but surely, it _will_ be coming, alright?

...Commenting on the statement above, I can practically _hear_ SomeBITGamer crying out in rage at that.

But anyways, I'm actually going to be setting this story aside for a whole week after this weekend due to a week-long summer camp I'll be attending. Maybe I'll bring a notebook along so I can load it up with ideas and come back ready to power-write for a few hours straight. We'll see. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	36. Chapter 36: Fresh Band Meat

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 36: Fresh Band Meat**

The bark of the tree I was leaning against was soft, unexpected for a tree. Either that or being a ghost had some perks, like making things more comfortable for me to lean against. I silently watched the entourage of ghosts pass by, milling about like ants in their home. Except these had no purpose; all they could do was wander aimlessly until called for judgement. Just like me, who was stuck here until my body was able to be revived.

I sighed. It wasn't really because I was bored; there was plenty enough to keep me far from that. The thing was, I had no idea what to do about anything at the moment. There was simply far too much. After all, I was trusted with holding a globally-threatening secret from perhaps the one closest person to the one asking this of me.

Even worse, the source of the global threat was maybe a mile or two down the path away from this house.

I winced in discomfort, remembering what both the tree and Yuyuko had felt like the previous day. The connection was… disturbing. Knowing that the relation between the queen of the Netherworld and a spirit-consuming tree was a bond closer than being twins was, put simply, unsettling. It led to a whole new host of questions I wanted answered, like what was going to happen to Yuyuko once the tree woke up. She had said that she would cease to exist, but did that mean that she would simply vanish? Or something worse? And what would it be like, once it came out? What would it do? Was it just going to eat the spirits of everything in sight like a starved animal?

So many questions. And no answers.

I sighed. Again.

Then I felt something odd.

I looked right.

"Wah!"

What the hell?

"N-Nitori-chan! H-how long have you been there?"

"A couple minutes, I think?"

How did she….

Maybe I was just too caught up in my own thoughts to notice her coming here. It wasn't totally implausible; maybe I was just that spacey. But to have not noticed her being that close, staring right at my face….

I pointedly looked away. "Sorry about that. I just didn't see you."

The two of us just sat there for a little bit. Then I turned back, and found that Nitori hadn't moved at all. Her eyes were still giving me the same curious look from before.

"W-what?"

Her eyes narrowed now, scathing me with an expression I wasn't sure about it. "You're worried about something, aren't you?"

Huh? Was she able to get that just from reading my face? "What do you mean?"

"You just seem troubled. Something's bothering you."

"Where did you get that idea?" Better to just play dumb; this matter wasn't one I could just discuss openly with anyone.

"I'm not sure," she admitted, backing off a bit now. "It's just a feeling I have."

And where was that intuition coming from, I wondered. Of course, I didn't ask that, and simply smiled instead. "Well, don't worry about it, okay? I'm fine."

She gave me a look that seemed to be questioning me. But then she smiled back. "Alright then."

Man, that was a bit close. I didn't want her worrying too much about me. Especially not about a matter like this

Again, silence fell back over us. Neither of us really wanted to get up and move apparently, so we just sat there under the cherry blossom tree, saying nothing. I don't know long we sat there for. At some point, I felt the need to break the ice and try to start up a conversation (most likely to ask about what kind of stuff she was planning to build next), but my voice failed me when all of a sudden Nitori scooted a bit closer and began leaning on my right shoulder. While it wasn't the most comfortable feeling in the world, suddenly having a girl lean on you with no invitation, it didn't feel all that bad.

At least, for the moment, of course. I suddenly felt something come in right above me. I looked up.

It was a familiar cone hat with a sun at its tip, on top of white-blue hair.

"Oh, hey, um… Merlin, was it?"

"So it _is_ you!"

She looked up away from me, and a hand came out from the tree. "One-san, Lyrica, I found him!" she called out.

Found him? As in me? What were they….

Before I could properly ask myself that, two more familiar faces, with matching cone hats, appeared from beyond the ghosts, and approached me. The third flipped downward from the tree she had been looking through to join her sisters.

And all three of them stared at me intently.

"Um… yes?" Why did I feel like they were trying to stab daggers with their eyes?

The three of them spoke one after the other, finishing a single sentence with three people.

Lunasa: "So, Kaito-san…."

Merlin: "What do you have-"

Lyrica: "-to say for yourself, huh?"

I just blinked dumbly at them, being confused by what subject they were supposed to be talking about, and being thrown off guard by the sudden round of three-person stereo. "Er… huh?"

Lunasa sighed. "Please don't try playing dumb."

Merlin nodded. "We know that you're the one-"

Lyrica glared. "-involved with the disappearance of our vocalist."

What?

Well this was certainly awkward. I had absolutely no idea what they meant by that? I mean, I could understand that their vocalist was missing, since I had overheard them outside of the gate, but what did that have to do with me?

Then I was hit with a second round of stereo that cleared everything up.

"Do you know-"

"-of a person-"

"-named Mystia Lorelei?"

Oh.

Wait, Mystia?

My eyes widened in surprise. I glanced over at Nitori, who was looking at me with just as much surprise.

Mystia was their singer?

The awkwardness of the situation instantly spiked a few notches upward with the mentioning of that name. "Erm… yeah, about that…."

All of them leaned in on me, severely intent on listening. My words died in my mouth.

Goddamnit. How the hell was I supposed to explain this to them? Was I supposed to say something like 'Oh yeah, I met her a few days back, when she had gone insane with some dark power and tried to eat both me and Nitori-chan alive, so I had to conjure up a hurricane and throw her away'? Not likely. Not just because it was hard to say, period, but also because I was pretty sure the three of them would flat out refuse to believe such a ridiculous story.

But I couldn't just lie to them about it, now that they knew I was involved. I was stuck.

"Well?" all three of them said at once.

I had no other option.

So as carefully as possible, I explained to them everything that happened that night. Or at least, everything related to Mystia, that is. A couple of key points, I chose to leave out (like the part about Nitori being stuffed into the pantry with nothing on at all), but for the most part, I was able convey the full story, with Nitori popping in on occasion to help out. It was a long-winded story, to be sure, but all three of them listened intently, all the way up to the end.

Once I was done, I just clammed up. I couldn't quite read the expressions on the faces of the three girls. But from what I could tell (which wasn't a lot), Merlin's expression was the only one that seemed to have softened up at all.

"So… you have no idea where Mystia is, then?" Lyrica finally asked.

I shook my head.

"Then what do you suggest we do now?" Lunasa continued.

"Hell if I know."

Then the brunette gained a rather mischievous smile. "I think I have an idea."

I didn't like the sound of that.

Lyrica leaned over past Merlin and whispered into Lunasa's ear. The face of the blond girl went from full neutral, to something resembling a smile similar to the one whispering.

Yeah, I _really_ didn't like the sound _or_ the look of this.

"Then it's settled."

Merlin didn't seem to like getting left out of the loop here, but she didn't say anything. The other two turned to me.

"Kaito-san, in exchange for making our singer disappear…" Lyrica began.

"You're going to take her place in our concert at the end of this week," Lunasa finished.

I was going to….

Wait, huh?

"Wait a moment!" I blurted out. "Are you serious about that?"

"Oh yes, we're very serious."

"We need to make you take responsibility for your actions. Right, Merlin?"

"Eh? Um, yes, right."

Oh come on, I thought you were on my side for a second there.

"But isn't this concert supposed to be, like, really important for you three? I've never even tried singing before."

"So? That means that if something goes wrong, then we could blame you."

"That's called taking responsibility, you know."

Seriously? That sounds more like designating a fall guy for your group instead of finding someone to take responsibility.

"Look, Kaito-san," Lyrica declared. "We're the Prismriver Sisters, the most famous musical group in Gensokyo, and we have a reputation to keep up. If you don't like it, then tough luck. We've been planning this concert for weeks now, and it's going to be our biggest concert ever."

"We cannot afford any mistakes or allowances for this," Lunasa continued. "I expect our crowd to be much larger this time than any previous performance we've put on. No matter what, we must be able to satisfy the entire audience. The lack of a singer will disappoint a large majority of them."

"Do you understand?" both of them said at once.

The sense of finality in their words got to me this time. Honestly, I couldn't really blame them; it really was my fault that they were in a jam like this, whether or not I had intentionally gotten them into it.

I sighed. "Alright, I get it. Fine, I'll do it."

Hey, maybe if I was lucky, I would actually turn out to not have that bad of a voice. No way in hell I would be able to match voice like Mystia's, though.

Yeah, like I would actually have that great of a voice.

"Very well then," Lunasa agreed. "We will stop by a little while later to start practicing. You have quite a few songs to learn this week."

She nodded to her sisters, and the three of them began walking away as one.

I breathed heavily, and dropped back against the tree. Man, how stupid was this? I was being turned into a scapegoat.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Nitori asked once the three were gone.

"Of course I am, Nitori-chan. I brought this upon both myself and them. It doesn't really matter whether or not I was trying to do this; to them, it looks a lot like sabotage, doesn't it?"

"Well, yes…."

"Which is why I have to make it up to them. If I have to become the fall guy in order to do that, then fine, I'll do it."

I smiled at her. "Don't worry. It'll be alright."

She kept looking at me curiously, as if trying to discern whether or not what I was saying was supposed to be a lie in some way. Then she asked "Are you always like this to everyone you meet?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"It seems like no matter where you go, you always try to help the people around you. Even if you don't really know the person, or it puts you at considerable personal risk, you don't stop to think about it, and just act. You'll intentionally put yourself in harm's way just to protect others. Isn't it dangerous to live like that?"

I blinked at her. It felt a bit strange, being told this, but she had a point.

I smiled sheepishly, looking away. I felt a bit ashamed, having to be told by her that, indirectly, I was actually part of the reason I kept getting hurt all the time. "Yeah, it is, isn't it?

"But you know what? I don't really mind living that way. I mean, I'm just some guy who happened to come here. I don't have any real reason to be here in the first place, so if I can help the people who're living here, and make things better, then I'll do that."

"Even if…."

I cocked my head in confusion, wondering why Nitori's expression had suddenly turned a little somber.

"Even if it means you'll nearly kill yourself?"

Oh.

My smile didn't quite vanish, though I was pretty sure it really wanted to at those words. Instead, I pushed out a weak chuckle. "It's kind of late to ask that, considering where we are. But I guess so."

Now she just looked worried. I couldn't blame her. If anything, my smile was making her worry _more_ because of how much I was supposedly taking my borderline-suicidal lifestyle in stride.

Of course, that wasn't the case. This was just the way I was choosing to live, because I couldn't really choose to live for my own sake. In a world like this, I wasn't worth that much. At least, in my own opinion, I wasn't. Other people might think differently, but those were their beliefs. And if I wasn't worth much, then better to use whatever worth I had to help those around me. Even if it was just a little.

Now that I thought about it, maybe this was the reason I kept trying to help even those I didn't know. Like protecting the library for Patchouli, or going to Hell and back for Nitori, fighting demons alongside Utsuho, and holding the shop floor for Reisen. Various little things that I was doing for strangers, because I believed that if I could, then I would, and sometimes I would try even if I couldn't. Because I wasn't worth that much in the first place, and a lack of my presence probably wouldn't bring about that much change. In fact, there were plenty of other people in Gensokyo who could probably do the same things as me except better.

I could at least take comfort in the fact that despite my general incompetence, I'd managed, so far, to change things for the better.

My smile didn't disappear as I waved a hand at Nitori. "I already said not to worry about me, okay? Everything will be okay."

She still looked unsure. I could tell that a large part of her wanted to try and deny my words. That it wasn't going to be okay. That my incompetence was going to get me into a serious load of trouble.

Of course, that was barring the fact that I'd already done exactly that.

But then she nodded. And she put a hand on my shoulder, smiling gently. "Don't push yourself too hard, okay?"

I laughed lightly. "I won't."

At that, Nitori rose from her seat and walked back towards the house. She only glanced back once to wave at me before entering the door that would eventually lead her back to her room.

I looked back over at the expanse of ghosts with a smiling, sorrowful expression. My answer had felt like a half-lie. I didn't want to have to push myself so hard, since doing so would only worry those around me. But if I didn't, then what use would I be in this world? Maybe it was better that there be nothing than a useless burden, but I didn't want to be either. I wanted to be worth _something_, and in order to do that, I would have to push myself.

But maybe… maybe once in a while, I could try holding myself back. Just a little bit, for her sake.

I'd have to see.

My eyes drifted shut. Not for sleep, but for thought. Over everything that got me to this point. Looking back, it was certainly quite a story. If someone were to write it out, it would probably make a decent book. But of course, that would depend partially on the writer, and it really depended on if the person reading actually liked it or not.

Ah, who was I kidding? Who would want to read a story like this?

My thoughts wandered off in a different direction. How was I possibly going to meet the expectations of the Prismrivers? Despite the horrifying memory latched along with it, I had to say that Mystia's singing was really good. Compared to me, who probably never tried singing before, and can't even remember if he has. And now I was going to use my singing voice – or rather, my lack thereof – to shame myself in front of a humongous crowd of people. Fantastic.

I sighed, and continued allowing my thoughts to wander. I wasn't really thinking of anything in particular, just running anything that would choose to enter my mind.

Then, all of a sudden, my thoughts fell upon a musical tune. My eyebrows furrowed; for some reason, the tune felt familiar, yet at the same time was one that I was sure I'd never heard anywhere in Gensokyo. No doubt it was something I'd heard at some point during the outside world. It seemed… fitting, somehow. Or at least, it felt fitting _somewhere_ around here. But where?

My face relaxed, and my throat began to hum as I started vocalizing it. As I slowly climbed the beginning few notes, more of my memory of the song's details began coming back. It started off on… percussion. Piano, specifically, with the light tinkling of some other percussion instrument, like a bell, in the background. Then the drums kicked in, rattling off a quick beat. Then the piano grew in intensity and speed as the brass and strings joined. A pause, and the brass took the stage as strings and percussion continued to provide backup, changing the melody to a powerful chorus.

The more I thought about it, and the more I could imagine it in my mind, I could feel a rising sense of amazement. Whoever managed to compose a piece like this must have been hailed as a genius.

At the end of the chorus, I ceased humming, allowing my breath to reset to its normal tempo. The tune continued to play in my mind.

"Hey, that sounded pretty nice."

"Gah!"

The sudden voice caught me by surprise, and my eyes snapped back open. Man, I must have really fallen out of it while humming.

When I looked left, Merlin was there.

Had she been listening to all of that?

"It might not be singing," she said kindly, smiling. "But that wasn't too bad. What's that song called?"

"W-wait a moment, when did you come back here? I thought you went off with Lyrica-san and Lunasa-san."

"I did. But I came back to see if I could help you with anything."

Oh… was this supposed to be some kind of show of pity the other two couldn't afford.

"But really, it doesn't look like you need much help. Your control is a bit sloppy sometimes, compared to Mystia, and your range needs a little work, but aside from that, it's not that bad."

Compliments? On my voice? She wasn't pulling my leg, was she?

"Now come on, tell me, what's that song called? You know, the one you were humming just now."

Eh? Why was she asking about that? I only started humming it because it came to mind. I didn't even know its name.

But, strangely enough, something began formulating in my head even as I stared at Merlin, trying to think. The connection seemed to come naturally, the hole being filled in on its own. I didn't know what was suddenly bringing back this part of my memory, but I had no complaints. I now knew it had something to do with not just Merlin, but every one of the Prismrivers.

And it came.

I turned away, looking off into the field of ghosts in confusion as the named rolled off my tongue. "The Phantom Ensemble…."

* * *

"Where did you learn this song?"

"I'm… not so sure myself. I think it's from the outside world somehow."

"But you just told us that you have no memory of the outside."

"I know, but sometimes, when certain things happen, pieces of my memory come back. And for some reason, this song just came back to me."

I was back inside the main house of Hakugyokoro. Merlin, apparently excited at the prospect of a new song for her sisters to play, immediately ran off to catch her sisters and brought them back to listen to me. It was embarrassing, knowing that three people were watching me do this, but I complied after telling them I wasn't totally sure where the sudden spurt of insight had come from. Once I was finished humming the main melody, I explained everything else I believed was supposed to be part of it, though I still wasn't sure how I knew it.

"Well we can't say we really believe that," Lyrica pointed out.

"Hey, _you_ think this is unbelievable? I'm the one who suddenly thought of it, and even _I_ can't believe it."

"I don't think you're thinking the same kind of disbelief as us."

"Huh?" Lunasa's statement confused me.

"I'll be frank with you; not one of us three believed you had any musical talent. And all of a sudden, you present us with this song. We cannot believe that it was simply a stroke of luck based on your memory; much more like it is a stroke of personal genius on your part."

Oh hell no. "No way. Don't try to give me credit for this. Didn't I already say that this song isn't even mine?"

Lunasa sighed. "Fine. If you really insist on that, then we shall not grant you credit for the song. Though we must thank you for giving us the song."

The other two nodded at this as well. I sighed a bit; it wasn't really my intention in the first place to give it to them. I was just humming it on a whim, and Merlin happened to be nearby when I did.

Then, Lunasa gestured to her sisters, and the three of them huddled up. No doubt discussing what to do, now that I turned out to have a minimal amount of talent. I waited patiently.

It only took about half a minute for them to reach an apparent consensus, and the three split.

"We have three things to say, Kaito-san," the sisters all said in unison. I nodded.

"First," Lyrica began reluctantly. "We want to apologize for believing you had no talent. This may not be your song, but you were able to at least somewhat imitate it, so maybe you do have some talent after all."

"Second," Merlin continued brightly. "We want to formally thank you for presenting this masterpiece to us. By your consent, we'd like to use this as a brand new song at the concert this week."

"Third," Lunasa concluded solemnly. "We want to invite you to be our replacement vocalist for Mystia. You will no longer be someone just here to take the heat, but an official, if temporary, member."

What?

Were they serious about that?

For a moment, I just gaped at the three in amazement. Then my lips broke into a smile, and I bowed.

"Thank you for the compliment. It is not my place to say this, but you may use the song if you wish. And yes, I would be glad to become Mystia's replacement."

Lunasa smiled widely. Merlin looked ready to burst with happiness. Lyrica still seemed unsure, but she didn't express it.

"Alright then!" Lunasa declared, clapping her hands together. "First order of business; we need lyrics for this new song. Once we've gotten a few lines, we'll start practicing the song itself. After that, we'll start teaching you the lyrics to our songs, Kaito-san. You're going to have to learn six different ones, including the new one, so get ready."

* * *

"Wow, Kaito-kun, tThat's amazing!"

"Your first real day here, and you've already become such good friends with those three."

Night had fallen over Hakugyokoro, and I was at the dinner table with the other four inside the house. According to Nitori, I had walked in with what seemed like an unnaturally cheery smile, which prompted the three of them to ask me what had happened. I was more than glad to explain.

"The three Prismriver Sisters are often honored guests here, you know," Yuyuko explained. "I can't wait to see you go up on stage and perform with them~"

"Thanks. I just hope I don't screw up on stage. That would be bad, wouldn't it?"

"Oh don't worry so much about it. You have a week, don't you?"

"That's true, but that means I have _only_ a week to learn everything. A couple of these songs even have some choreography thrown in with them, so I have to learn lyrics, singing cues, _and_ a bit of dancing too. I'm seriously going to have my work cut out for me. I don't think I've ever been on stage before either!"

That last bit had come out at a rapid pace. Even just _talking_ about this made me excited. It wasn't only because I was nervous though. Something in me simply felt… exhilirated by the prospect. The possibility of being able to sing, dance, and perform in front of a crowd of people. I wasn't sure why; maybe I had some stage experience from the outside. I couldn't be sure. Yet the gripping feeling in my chest was a strange mixture of fear, anticipation, and enthusiasm.

I just hoped I wouldn't freeze up on stage!

The rest of dinner passed by, the four of us chatting and laughing.

Youmu didn't speak much, mostly only saying something if spoken to, and she expressed perhaps the least amount of emotion out of us four (unless, of course, Yuyuko made a playful jab at her, at which she would promptly flush in embarrassment). It made me think back to the previous night – much to my discomfort – and wonder if it was just how she was, or if it had anything to do with her grandfather. Naturally, I never asked.

Yuyuko easily talked the most and laughed the loudest. But I knew it was a façade; any time Nitori and Youmu weren't looking, and I was the only one who would notice, the glint in her eyes would tell a much sadder tale. She was keeping up this face so the other two would not worry, since ignorance was, after all, bliss. Also, she had already accepted the fact that she was about to die again, and this was her way of going out with a bang.

Nitori seemed perfectly content sitting herself in the middle of the scale between the two main residents of the house, like me. On top of that, a couple times while we were eating, she would glance over to me with an odd smile on her face. I had no idea why she was doing that, although admittedly, I'd done the same a few times. What was she thinking now, being here with us?

Then I remembered something.

"Um, Nitori-chan?" I asked, stopping her before she could leave the room after dinner was over.

"Hm? What is it?"

"Uh…."

I glanced away out of shame and embarrassment. God, this was going to be hard. "I, um… I have something I need to ask of you."

"Is that so?" She turned to face me completely. "What do you need?"

"Erm… I need you to…."

My tongue tied itself up, refusing to cooperate.

"Ah…." I groaned, shaking my head in frustration. "Never mind. Sorry."

I quickly made my way past her, taking note of the fact she was extremely confused just before I left the room.

Damn it. This was seriously important, so why couldn't I say it? Was it just my conscience forbidding me from doing so?

I groaned again, also out of frustration, but this time at my lack of a spine, and brought a palm to my face in exasperation.

"I know what you were about to say to her."

I turned, and Yuyuko was there. I hadn't realized it, but somehow, I had managed to walk all the way back to my room.

"No doubt you do," I said dejectedly.

"But you don't have the nerve to say it, do you? Especially not to someone you care so deeply about."

"You don't have to remind me." I pressed a single hand over an eye out of shame. "How could I possibly say it? It feels like I'm completely betraying her as a friend."

A second of silence, then a procession of footsteps, leading to a single hand being placed on my shoulder.

"Sometimes… you have to betray a friend in order to protect them."

"… I know…."

"Then I trust you will be able to tell her before it is too late?"

"Yes… I will."

Her hand left my shoulder, and I continued walking, entering my room, and tucking myself into my futon once I'd blown out the lantern.

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_**

Last week was... sort of a bad week for me, which is why I wasn't able to get out this chapter until a full week after I got back from summer camp. I did manage to get some writing and ideas down while I was there, but much more of my time was spent on other activities, much to my dismay, so I didn't get a lot. On top of that, whenever I have a notebook where I put down the stuff I want to keep, I always write _ahead_ of my current progress, so as not to forget it later on. So I had to compose this whole chapter from scratch, and since I was pretty demotivated for almost all of last week (the reason, I will keep to myself), it came out rather slowly, and shorter than usual. Hope this doesn't happen again in the future.

Ah, leaning on the fourth wall is fun. Especially when the lean can be used for self-sniping. Of course, I doubt very many - if any at all - of the people reading this note here will agree with that statement, since they've come so far along already. I myself still wonder if I truly deserve so much attention and praise for this story. But that's not for me to decide or whine about in any way. Besides, with that point put into the chapter, I've set myself up for a nice brick at the end of the story(for those who understand what I mean, don't spoil it!).

Anyways. I will say that Phantom Ensemble is easily one of my favorite themes of all time throughout the Touhou games, taking third at one place behind Suwa Foughten Field from game 10, with Captain Murasa from game 12 taking first. This is all just boss themes, though, as stage themes are a different category altogether. It felt fitting to let the Prismriver sisters play their own tune, so I decided to incorporate it into the story.

So, what was 'I' supposed to say earlier? You'll find out next. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	37. Chapter 37: Awakening

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 37: Awakening**

"Kaito-san?"

"Huh? Oh, hey Merlin-san." I only glanced up a bit before going back to staring at my own feet. The clothes I was wearing now – which were actually tailored to be similar to the Prismriver's own clothes except with pants and boots and colored a deep ocean blue – were usually loose, but felt like they were suffocating me on the inside.

Five days had passed, and it was already the day of the concert. I barely had time to recount on everything that happened that had nothing to do with singing or musical cues, with so much going on so quickly. The thing was, whatever time that wasn't spent rehearsing was spent either meeting up with old acquaintances or moping about.

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Not really, no." I let out a weak, forced chuckle. "Sorry. It's only a little while before the concert starts and I'm like this."

A hand came to rest on my shoulder. "I know I don't know what happened, but you did what you had to do, right?"

"Yes, I know. But I wish I didn't have to. I hurt her so much. I still remember how much pain she had written on her face…."

* * *

"_You wanted to see me, Kaito-kun?"_

"_Ah, Nitori-chan. Please, come in."_

_It was the day after the Prismriver sisters had accepted me. In the middle of a break during rehearsal, I had sought out Nitori, and asked her to come to my room some time after dinner._

_The kappa entered my room, sitting down a short distance from me. Due to a distinct smell coming from her underneath the sweet water of her usual aura, I could tell that she had just recently taken a bath._

"_So… what did you want to see me about?" Her face was a little red. I could understand why; it'd been a few days since the two of us had had time to be left alone, and she was here in my room._

"_Um… it's about that thing I couldn't tell you yesterday."_

"_Oh… well, what is it?"_

"_It's…."_

_My lips pursed together. Goddamnit, why couldn't I just say it?_

"_I'm sorry… this is kind of hard for me."_

"_That's okay. Go on."_

_I took a deep breath. My eyes shut tightly, not wanting to see the look on Nitori's face once the words came out and could no longer be taken back._

* * *

"Oy, Kaito!"

"Eh? Oh, hello Marisa-san."

The blond witch grinned widely as she strode over. She was one of many people who had also come to Hakugyokoro for the cherry blossom viewing today. Reimu was here too, as were Sakuya, Patchouli and Remilia (I made sure to stay out of her sight as much as possible), Reisen and Eirin (the instant she found out about my newest injury, she promptly scolded me), Aya, Kanako, Suwako, and Sanae (Momiji was being left behind to guard the mountain), and Byakuren and her entire crew. Some of them had been invited by Yuyuko herself. Some, like Reimu, Marisa, and the Scarlet Devil Mansion dwellers, had come here of their own accord, since they knew where this place was.

"I heard about what you had to say to Nitori," Marisa said the instant she got closer. "And I hear she's not happy about it."

"No doubt she isn't…" I agreed sarcastically. I was the one who had caused it after all. "But what choice did I have?"

"Hey don't sound so depressed, will ya?" she encouraged cheerfully, clapping me on the back. "You're about to go out on stage in front of a few thousand people. You can't go out looking like this!"

She jabbed at my face, and took me by the cheeks, trying to tug my lips up and around into a working smile. It wasn't very effective.

"Oh come on," she complained. "You had a good reason for having to tell her that. Me, Reimu, and Sakuya all know why too. Don't be so hard on yourself!"

"I kinda wish I wouldn't…" I sighed. "But it's so difficult. It's like no matter what I do, I just feel the same guilt as before."

* * *

"_W-what? You want me to-"_

"_I know it sounds ridiculous," I interrupted before she could try to question it further. Damn, I knew she was going to be unhappy. Just from the look on her face, I could already tell. "But it's what I'm asking of you."_

"_B-but why?"_

"_Because…." I hadn't wanted it to come to this, and I sighed. "Well… something is going to happen at the end of this week. I'm afraid that's all I can tell you…."_

"_That's it?" she questioned accusingly. "You can't just expect me to listen if you won't tell me more."_

"_But I can't."_

"_And why not?" she blurted out. "Why can't you tell me any more?"_

"_Because I made a promise. A promise to the one who told me this to not let anyone else find out. But knowing this is dangerous, which is why I have to ask you to…." I didn't want to have to say it again. I could already feel the pain welling up in my chest a third time. The same as the previous night and just today. Just the act of saying it was more than enough already._

"_What's so bad about this that you can't even tell me?"_

_Man, she was insistent. "It's… a matter of life and death, Nitori-chan…."_

"_We're already _in_ the land of the dead."_

"_That's not the point! The occurrence that's going to happen is going to threaten a lot of lives. This is just to keep you safe."_

"_But if you're not going to tell me anything, then I'm not going to listen."_

"_Nitori-chan, please!"_

"_If I do this, then you're going to wind up getting hurt."_

"_And so will you if you don't. Please, Nitori-chan, this is for your own good."_

"_No!"_

_I groaned. This was slowly getting itself under my skin. I wanted Nitori to understand, but she wasn't listening. Of course, it wasn't her fault. The blame indirectly lay with me, since I couldn't tell her anything. But at this rate, anything short of drastic measures would not be able to shake her._

_My eyes were closed, but my head dropped in shame. I knew I was going to receive physical retribution for this, but I had to do it. I had to pull out the one ace in the hole I knew was going to work._

_Knowing was half the battle, but knowing this just sickened me._

"_I'm sorry. I didn't want to have to do this, but I'm left with no other choice."_

_Even with only her aura in my mind's eye, I could tell how confused she was._

_Then shock replaced that confusion._

"_No…."_

"_Please… forgive me…."_

"_No, Kaito-kun, please," she pleaded._

_My teeth grinded together. "Nitori-chan…."_

"_Kaito-kun, don't do this!"_

* * *

My face was buried in my hands. I was trying my absolute hardest not to cry, and so far, it seemed to be working. But too much time, and I would probably wind up breaking down. I couldn't afford to let that happen, not with the performance starting in so little time.

"How could I do that to her…?" I murmured hoarsely. Then I cleared my throat; no need to screw up my voice. "Everything with it is just… wrong! She probably hates me now. I wouldn't blame her if she did either. I just…."

"It would not do for you to break down now."

I sighed. Leave it to Lunasa to try and speak logical sense to someone in the middle of a difficult moment.

"Please get up. A spare speaker is not made for a person to sit on it."

"Sorry," I apologized, rising from my seat.

The eldest sister of the troupe looked up at me with a neutral expression. "I know this is hard on you, and I'm sorry if I sound insensitive. But you need to put this behind you. And if not behind you, then set it aside, at least until the end of the concert."

"Yeah." It was Lyrica; she had come and joined the little group of girls here. "I don't think that Nitori girl really hates you. I'm sure that if you explain the situation to her fully, she'll understand what you were trying to do."

"I don't doubt she'll wind up understanding…. I just hope she'll be able to forgive me."

"Oh you're such a worrywart, Kaito. Calm down, will you?"

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. The sound of that voice did nothing but irritate me. "Don't even say that, Yukari-sama. How the hell am I supposed to calm down?"

"That's up to you, of course." The boundary youkai dropped down from her hammock.

"Then why are you here?"

"To wish you good luck on your performance! Or rather, break a leg. And your decision was the right one."

A heavy sigh. "I don't know if I should feel comforted, when it's coming from you… but thanks. I guess I kind of needed that."

Truthfully, Yukari was probably one of the only people I could possibly trust enough to believe them if they said that. Marisa, Reimu, and Sakuya would also qualify, since they had experience coming here to Hakugyokoro. I remembered when they first came here, and visited the Saigyou Ayakashi, all three had reacted with shock and disbelief. It made me wonder why Youmu didn't feel any form of apprehension at seeing a tree that hadn't bloomed in centuries suddenly blooming a second time. When I asked, it was because the three of them had knocked her out cold for the entire fight with Yuyuko and the spirit beneath the tree, and had kept it a secret from her even then.

"It's not like it's something you can easily talk about, even with specific people," Reimu explained. "So we thought it better to just keep our mouths shut."

Frankly, despite the pain it had already caused, I agreed with that statement. It was one of the few reasons for why I had been unable to explain anything.

Not that it mattered anymore.

"Okay, that's quite enough," Lunasa declared. "You two are not supposed to be allowed backstage, so please, leave."

"Aww, do we have to?" Marisa whined.

"I'm sorry, but it's true," I said, siding with Lunasa. "Please, go back out to the audience seats."

I bowed to them both. "Thank you for your comforting words."

Marisa smiled, and patted me on the shoulder. The usual glitter in her eyes had dimmed a bit, and I realized that she truly understood my predicament, knowing both me and Nitori. "It's no problem. Just don't screw up on stage, got that? And who knows; if everything works out, I'll go with you to explain everything, alright, ze?"

A ghost of a smile touched my lips. "Thank you, Marisa-san. I would greatly appreciate that."

She gave me a toothy grin, tipped her hat, and promptly walked off. I watched her go with a feeling of calm. Marisa may be a 'do what I want' kind of person, but she's also an undeniably good person at heart. It was nice, having someone like her around.

"Have fun, Kaito," Yukari bade me, a portal leading back out opened behind her. "I know all your choreography and lyrics, so if you mess up, I'll know~"

I sighed. "I'll keep that in mind."

With a quiet _woing_, she was gone.

"Alright," Lunasa let out. "The concert is just about to start, so everyone, get into your positions."

"Hai!"

I remained on this side with Lyrica, while Merlin and Lunasa made their way over to the opposite side of the backstage. The moment they appeared across from me, I stepped a little closer to the edge of the wings, making sure not to reveal myself.

A hand patted me on the back, and I turned to Lyrica, who was smiling. This week had not been easy on me, and Lyrica had been the one to make sure it was that way. But now we were here, about to perform, and I found that even though she put me through so much trouble, I respected her as a teacher. I was sure she felt the same with me as a student. Out of the three sisters, Lunasa was the leader, Merlin was the friend, and Lyrica was the mentor. A tough, trickster-type mentor, but a mentor all the same.

"No sweat, right?" she encouraged.

I closed my eyes in solace. "Yeah."

I wondered where Nitori would be, out there.

* * *

"_Nitori-chan, I order you to leave Hakugyokoro by the end of this week!"_

_I said it._

_Silence followed immediately after for at least a good twenty seconds. Then…._

_PSSH!_

_Fatality._

_I'd seen it coming a mile away, but I made no move to avoid it. I absolutely deserved it, betraying her like this. I hadn't quite expected her to hit so hard, though, and a large part of my upper body snapped to the side along with my head._

"_You said you wanted to see me as your friend…" Nitori accused in a semi-controlled fashion. I was surprised she was able to keep any control; I had expected her to completely lose her temper. As it was, this was the first time I'd ever seen her angry since I'd first met her._

"_You want to see me as your friend, and yet you choose to go back on your own words like this! What kind of man are you?"_

_Not even a man, maybe. But I said nothing. I didn't believe I had the right to do so. Not in this kind of a situation. I wasn't even looking at her._

_I tried to keep telling myself that it was for her own good. That I was keeping her safe by doing this. That the pain I was causing her now was negligible compared to the punishment she would otherwise receive._

_It seemed to be working. Marginally._

"_Well? Aren't you going to say anything?"_

_She was practically screaming at me now, but I still did nothing. I hadn't even reached up a hand to touch the part of my cheek that hurt the most._

_Of course, that wasn't the only part of me that hurt._

_All of a sudden, a pair of hands seized me by the collar and yanked me closer. "Answer me!"_

_The move was unexpected, but I kept my head down._

_I wished her aura didn't smell this sweet. It was only making it harder._

_I wanted, with all my heart, to tell her no. That I was going to take back my command. That I wanted her to stay here. But I knew I couldn't. Not without putting her life in danger._

_Then, without warning, the hands shoved me back, nearly knocking me all the way over._

"_Fine! Then you can stay here until you go off to rot in Hell for all I care!"_

* * *

By the next morning, Nitori was gone. She had listened to me.

I refused to eat breakfast that morning, instead, choosing to simply go outside to the tree, and cry.

Even now, a single tear was dropping down my cheek. As it travelled, I could feel the familiar sting of Nitori's hand hitting my face. I reached up a single hand to wipe it away.

"No crying now," Lyrica jabbed.

"I know…."

Then my voice dropped, and whispered so nobody but me and whatever gods above would be able to hear.

"Nitori-chan… I swear, upon my soul, I will make this up to you one day. Somehow, somewhere, I will make it up to you…. I'm sorry."

Then the crowd began roaring, begging for the show to start. It was our cue to go.

Smoke began billowing out the sides, and the crowd cheered. Once a cloud had enveloped the entire stage, Lyrica and I burst out of our cover, veering outwards downstage. Being the newbie, I stood in the back, and I knew that Lyrica had taken position at my right, with Merlin and Lunasa to the left and in front of me. I made sure to position myself correctly, so the fog completely covered me, leaving not even a shadow in the fog.

Then all of a sudden, several instruments flew out from the wings and up above, in front of each sister. Lunasa was given her usual violin, along with (I couldn't believe this) an electric guitar. Merlin whipped out her trumpet, and hanging beside it was a large saxophone. Lyrica had her keyboard in place, with a set of drums and a couple other percussion type instruments.

Each one took a single instrument – their usual ones, save for Lunasa who grabbed the guitar – in their hands, gripping where there was normally spirit fire to hold them aloft. And Lyrica began, with Lunasa strumming a few chords in the background, tapping out a quick stream of notes that rose and dropped at rapid pace. After six measures, the last two played much faster than normal, then rested. The rest ended, and Merlin took to the front, blasting out a powerful tune as Lunasa backed her up and Lyrica shifted over to her drum set. I came in with the vocals at this point, taking the persona of an angel embracing the many wonders of the land beyond enlightenment.

It was a song about _Wonderful Heaven_.

Then my energy blade flashed out, and I made a few cuts through open air, catching the attention of those at the farthest front through the fog. I punched the floor, and the cloud exploded, revealing the four of us just as we hit the main chorus.

The lines and melody suddenly changed. As a whole, the song tuned itself down for a moment, letting Lyrica come back into focus on her keyboard, as Merlin hung back on her trumpet. The angel, now, had grown tired of her trouble-less life in the clouds, and decided she wanted some fun on the world of the living. And that fun, apparently, involved messing with the weather and causing earthquakes, just because she could.

By the end of the intro song, the whole crowd was already going wild.

I stood there, amazed. I had managed to make my way through the entire first song without freezing or messing up in any way. And the crowd was so huge! Marisa had said it would be a few thousand, but with a sea of people this big, I expected it to be pushing at least ten thousand people, all a mix of spirits, youkai, and the few humans who had managed to come here.

At the very front of the crowd was a box cut away from the rest of the audience, and held the honored guests of the show. Yuyuko and Youmu, of course, were there, as were Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, and everyone else that had been invited. The occasional flash of light coming from the little group indicated that Aya was there also, taking photos of the four of us on stage.

We allowed the cheering to go on for a minute or two before trying to calm them down. Once enough of the volume had died away, I handed off the microphone to Lunasa.

"Ladies and gentlemen, spirits, youkai, and humans, welcome one and all to the Grand Cherry Blossom Festival of Hakugyokoro!"

General cheering and assent. Lunasa waited while the crowd calmed itself.

"Thank you all for making the trip all the way here to Hakugyokoro for such a glorious event, one that has yet to see the light. People, you're about to witness history in the making, as the Saigyou Ayakashi, for the first time in centuries, is about to reach full bloom! I am Lunasa, of the musical group the Prismriver Sisters, and I will be one of your masters of ceremonies for this evening. We hope that you all fully enjoy yourselves on this incredible night!"

Once the crowd quieted down once more, she continued. "But before we continue, I would like to introduce a new face to both the Prismriver Sisters, and Gensokyo as a whole. Originally a denizen of the world outside our own, our sister trio is no longer a girls-only band, as a male has joined our ranks tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our vocalist for the night, Kaito!"

Although we'd rehearsed this a couple times, I still felt embarrassed at Lunasa's little spiel.

Confusion ran its way through the crowd at the mentioning of my presense. Lunasa turned, smiling slightly, and offered the mic back to me. I accepted it.

"Good evening, everybody," I greeted with gutso. I tried to hide my pain, knowing that this greeting only went out to all those present, and that one person in particular was not here. "I am Kaito, and I will be your vocalist for this performance. I'm sure those of you who have attended a Prismriver Sister concert before are wondering why I am here, and not their usual singer Mystia Lorelei. I'm afraid that unforeseen circumstances have rendered Mystia-san unable to attend the concert tonight. For that reason, I have been taken as her replacement. I don't think I'll be able to match Mystia-san in the slightest, as she's a highly talented singer, and I'm just a nobody who happened to get lucky. However, I will do my best bring as much quality as I possibly can on a momentous night such as this. This will also mark my first time performing on stage, so please, treat me well. Thank you!" I bowed to the crowd.

Loud murmers passed back and forth from person to person. I had no clue if they would accept me or not. If they didn't, then this night was going to end badly for the Prismrivers, and I didn't want that. They had worked hard for this, and I wasn't going to let myself spoil it for them.

Which was why I had prepared something for this.

I flourished my non-mic hand in invitation, gesturing the crowd. "And now, without further ado, let us commence in what shall truly be a night of nights!"

Then my non-mic hand flipped upward, shooting a large volley of water bullets off into the sky, heading towards the crowd.

I smiled, and looked back. Lunasa looked almost livid, her face calmly but somewhat angrily asking me _What the hell are you doing? That wasn't planned at all!_

It certainly wasn't. I grinned a bit more widely, and looked back up at the water bullets I had let off, gauging distance and potential fall time. I shifted my right foot behind me as power began building within it. This was going to be one long shot….

* * *

"_Hey, it's you!"_

"_Gah!"_

_It had been a chance encounter. Three days before the concert, I was using some of my time wandering around Hakugyokoro when I suddenly spotted Sakuya. I wanted to ask why she was here, so I started running over, but Remilia suddenly came out of nowhere, as if trying to catch up to Sakuya. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't fast enough to start running away before the vampire child managed to spot me._

_The moment the little girl had her eyes on me, they furrowed in anger, and she dashed over with speed I would expect from no one else but her. Once in range, she grabbed me by the collar. Her aura was a heavy crimson, with the deep scent of blood._

"_Ahahaha…" I laughed nervously. "Hey there, Remilia-sama. Um, how are things?"_

_Her crimson eyes glared at me with venom. But she answered. "Things are… fine… rat. May I ask what you are doing here?"_

"_I would like to know the same," a second voice said, and my neck craned upward as much as it would. Sakuya was there. As fitting for someone like her, her aura was an icy silver._

_A third figure of violet aura, Patchouli, stood behind the maid. "As would I."_

_I smiled. "Well, I'd love to tell you the story, but um… would you mind letting go of my collar, Remilia-sama? Please?"_

_The little vampire kept hold of me for another few seconds. Then she let go, but she never stopped glaring._

_Damn, that single defeat was really sticking to her, wasn't it? But then again, at that time I was only a newbie who had just come into Gensokyo the previous day, so it really was pretty embarrassing._

_Nonetheless, once I was able to breathe easily again, I relayed my story to them. Sakuya and Patchouli listened politely, asking few questions at choice intervals. Remilia, on the other hand, took multiple opportunities to interrupt, whether to ask a (sometimes needless) question or make a rude remark, just like the first time._

_This time, however, was different. Though Remilia was, perhaps as usual, overly rude, I took her comments in much greater strides than I did the previous time, even agreeing or laughing alongside her on some of them – particularly ones concerning the way I was an idiot a lot of the time. Maybe it was because I felt more comfortable, having Sakuya and Patchouli present as well, but I wasn't sure._

_All in all, this talk went much better than the one from more than a week ago. Partially because I wasn't suddenly being stuck in a spell card duel against my general consent, partially because this time I was enjoying myself much more overall._

_Patchouli spoke first once I was done. "It is good that you seem to be enjoying the hospitalities of Gensokyo, to an extent. Also, since I have not yet had the opportunity to do so, I would like to personally and properly thank you for rising to the defense of my precious books." She bowed to me._

_I waved my hands in front of me. "You don't need to thank me. I was just doing what I could to help out."_

"_Perhaps so," Sakuya interjected. "But to take on someone like Marisa and win? For someone with so little power at the time, it's certainly quite a feat."_

"_But that was only because I had your spell cards to help me."_

"_And what difference does it make, idiot?" Remilia interrupted. "Do you know how long that stupid witch has been bothering us? It's about time someone knocked her down a peg!"_

_Wow. Well, if she said so._

"_Of course," she said immediately afterward, in a typical 'regal' way, with her head turned away and a hand over her chest. "If it had been me out there, I would have taken care of it with much less trouble. After all, I'm much stronger than you."_

_Gee, couldn't avoid an opportunity to make yourself look good, could you Remilia?_

"_And I'm sure that if I took you on now, I'd definitely be able to beat you, Kaito."_

"_Oh, is that so?" I said in a bit of a sing-song voice. She really wanted to go that badly?_

"_You bet your ass it is!"_

"_Hadn't expected such explicit language from a child," I said, grinning widely. Sakuya looked worried. Patchouli was as neutral as ever._

"_Hey, who are you calling a child?"_

"_The only one here who looks like one?" I asked a bit mockingly, leaning over her._

_BAM!_

_That had to be expected, with a hair-trigger temper like hers. The force of her punch sent me flying, but I pulled the brakes in midair before flying too far. I shook my head a bit, shaking the pain off._

"_Hey what the- when did you learn how to fly?" Remilia asked, dumbstruck._

"_Er… the same day you tried to beat the living hell out of me?" I confirmed. Just to press my point home, I did a couple loops, and flew a fair bit higher._

_Remilia growled. "Get back down here so I can pummel you, Kaito!"_

"_Huh? Why should I?"_

"_Because I said so!" she barked._

_My head cocked to the side in confusion, and I pointed a finger at the large bat wings protruding from her back. "But I thought you could fly."_

_That comment, if anything, only made her angrier._

"_That's actually a bit of a sore spot for Remi, you know," Patchouli supplied 'helpfully', to the sudden flinch of Remilia. "She can dash through the air in short spurts at a time, but she ca-"_

"_No one asked you, Patchy!" the vampire cut off._

_I guffawed a bit, but refrained from laughing. "Oh, so that's it? I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. I mean, you're a vampire, and you can't even fly?"_

"_Hey! Get back down here right now!"_

_I shrugged. "Sorry, Remilia-sama. I'd rather stay in a place where I won't get punched."_

"_Why you little- I'll show you! Take this!"_

* * *

What surprised me was that the day immediately after this incident (which eventually turned into a one-sided barrage to no avail), I found out that all my original abilities still worked. Even better, they were at the same near-god-level status I had experienced inside Nazrin's mind. Or some of them were, at least; my water bullets had been augmented, but my energy blade hadn't.

But for all intensive purposes, I was fine with that.

Knowing Remilia would almost definitely give me a sound beating some time afterwards, I kicked upward.

A massive red rocket projectile shot out of my leg, flying off in the direction of the water bullets I had fired off just a couple seconds ago.

My aim proved true, or I just got lucky. One after the other, a line of blue energy explosions lit up the sky, culminating in a single huge explosion of red.

The crowd went wild at the sudden display.

I looked back. Lunasa's eyes were wide at first, but then she broke into a small smile, saying _Okay, that was kind of cool._

I turned back to the crowd. "Come on, everyone! Let's get this show on the road!"

They roared in affirmative.

It was a fantastic night. Every song we brought to the table had a different swing to it. There was _Apparitions Stalk the Night_, followed by _Tomboyish Wraith in Love, Ghostly Eyes, _and ending on _Green-Eyed Revenant._ With each song, the three sisters stole away on solo parts in conjunction with the mood. When Lunasa flew solo, the air would grow heavier, as if rain clouds were gathering, and a strange feeling of depression would descend, as was characteristic of _Green-Eyed Revenant_. Merlin put up the exact opposite of this, bringing the shining sun down with great force and pumping the atmosphere full of energy, which she did with _Apparitions Stalk the Night_ and _Tomboyish Wraith in Love_. Lyrica did neither, instead, choosing to draw illusions in the air, depicting the picture of her choosing with the tune of _Ghostly Eyes._

Throughout the course of four songs, I only screwed up a total of three times. Twice, it was a choreographical error, and the last was a lyrical one, but by the time I realized I had messed up, it was already far too late to recitify anything, so I simply kept going with the flow. After all, the only ones who would know I screwed up were on stage with me, or sitting in the VIP box offstage.

Overall, it was still amazing. I had the feeling that the crowd was cheering much more for the three sisters than they were for me, but that was fine. This was their show, after all, and I was just here to help out.

That didn't mean I wasn't enjoying myself, of course. I savored every moment I possibly could, being on this stage. I suppose it was a form of basking in another person's spotlight, since here I was alongside the most popular band in all of Gensokyo.

Naturally, those few minutes of fame wouldn't last forever, and before I realized it, the concert was already coming to an end. Which meant that it was almost time….

"Thank you, one and all, for attending this amazing concert," I stated once _Green-Eyed Revenant_ finished and the crowd was done with their cheering. "But alas, all good things must come to an end, and I'm afraid this concert is almost over. Not to worry, though, as we have two more things that will certainly make this the best Prismriver Sister's concert you'll attend in a long time.

"First of all, I'm sure you've all noticed by now, but look behind me, above the stage." I swung my hand behind me to show off what was there.

It was the Saigyou Ayakashi. The stage had been set up at the end of one of its roots.

"I'm sure you all know what this is, people. Yes, this is the mighty Saigyou Ayakashi tree, one of legendary reputation for being the only tree in this entire garden of Hakugyokoro to have never bloomed a single time. Not once, until a strange incident last year, when the tree was able to reach full bloom. But alas, this incident was seen by few, and forgotten by all. Do not fret, however, as in only a little bit, after one more song, the Saigyou Ayakashi will once again reach the splendor it achieved only one other time!"

By this point, the crowd was cheering so loud, I thought I was going to go deaf, with the combination of the blaring music on stage coupled with the immense wailing being belted out by so many ghosts.

Despite the noise, I looked down to make sure everything was going fine. A large part of the VIP box was empty now. Reisen, Eirin, Aya, Kanako, Suwako, and Sanae were the only ones left. No doubt they were wondering why everyone else had left.

The sense of dread I had suppressed for so long was coming back now.

"Thank you everyone, for all your excitement," I shouted into the mic over both the crowd and my growing anxiety. I hid it the absolute best I could, even casually slipping a hand into my pocket. "But first, allow me to direct your attention skyward, to a very good friend of mine. Say hello to everyone, Yukari-sama!"

A set of lights burst to life, aiming upwards to the boundary youkai sitting high above the stage. She was rather relaxed, with her parasol hanging over her shoulder as usual, and a mic in her hands.

"Good evening, everyone~" she greeted in a very lighthearted tone. "For those who don't know me, I'm Yukari Yakumo, a guest to the facilitator of this concert, Yuyuko Saigyouji. I came here to witness the second-ever blooming of the Saigyou Ayakashi tree, and a certain matter has come to my attention. Kaito, if you please?"

I nodded, and aimed a rocket kick at her. Two boundaries opened; one to absorb my projectile, the other to spit it out towards the tree. Before it even traveled six or seven meters, it dissipated harmlessly against a rounded wall of energy.

"As you all can see here, a protective boundary has been set up – courtesy of me, by the way – around the entire tree. You see, being around for so long, the tree has managed to soak up quite a bit of magic over the centuries, and if – or should I say, when – the tree reaches full bloom, a large amount of that magical energy is released in rather dangerous quantities. So this shield has been put in place so it can contain the magic released so as to keep you all safe from harm."

A short round of applause dotted with a few cheers came from the audience.

"Thank you, Yukari-sama," I said as the lights shining on her died away. All I could do was hope the barrier would hold.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, a moment that the Prismriver Sisters and I have been waiting for."

As I spoke, I could hear the Prismrivers slowly starting up the music. It was just loud enough for the audience to hear it clearly, but not so loud as to drown out my own voice.

"Everybody, before we begin, I would like to, on behalf of the Prismriver Sisters, thank you all for attending. You've been an amazing audience, and it has been an honor performing for you tonight. For myself, I would like to express my gratitude, for making my once-in-a-lifetime stage experience the best it could possibly be. Thank you!

"And now, without further ado…."

The audience may not have noticed, but the music had been dying away, and the three Prismrivers had been backing upstage. I took my non-mic hand out of my pocket, now with several small objects clasped inside them.

And I threw the tiny pellets into the stage floor, which all exploded.

An immense cloud of smoke – just like the one that had covered the stage at the beginning – walled off the audience's vision almost instantly.

Geez Yukari, I'll never know where you managed to find such effective smoke bomb pellets. But you really are helping a lot.

The moment I knew that I was nothing more than a shadow to the crowd – which was causing quite a ruckus with the sudden obscuring of the performance – I flourished my hand in a deep bow, and backed off to join the Prismrivers. Through the smoke, we glanced at each other, and smiled widely.

A very quiet _vwoom._ My skin tingled as I felt the change pass.

As one, the four of us walked back downstage, remaining shadows to all outside our little smoky world. Four very different shadows now.

Slowly but surely, we were drawing a reaction. One of surprise and expectance.

I raised a hand, and swept it across. The cloud obeyed my command, and was blown away until it was nothing more than a puff on the wind.

The crowd roared.

Yukari had helped yet again, this time with a full costume change. Apparently, she had seen a photo of this somewhere (probably from my world, no doubt), and had decided it would be a nice change. The Prismriver Sisters were now swapped into what could be described as little other than color-coded ball gowns, complete with matching opera gloves and corresponding ornaments. Lunasa took a more conservative vest-like black top, but with more frills on her dress and a crescent moon clasp just under her left collarbone. Merlin's white dress moved the frills to her top, hanging the outfit off her shoulders with a sun-shaped choker tightly clinging to her neck. Lunasa's chose to forgo the straps entirely, with the red dress wrapped around her upper body and a star pendant dangling loosely from a chain necklace. No doubt all three were also wearing matching high heels under their dresses.

All in all, they were stunningly gorgeous. Though I couldn't help thinking that the tight-fitting outfits made Lunasa uncomfortable, emphasizing the fact that the eldest was also the 'smallest'.

I, on the other hand, had received an outfit perhaps like that of a conductor, except unlike the generally solid single-colors of the sisters, mine was a large mix. A long blue half-coat went over a pale blue dress shirt tucked into black dress pants, and a red-fringed white cravat hung from my collar.

At first, it had felt awkward. Now, on stage, it felt awesome.

"To all of you out there, we have a special treat for you. For newcomers and return attendees alike, we are proud to introduce a brand new song: _The Phantom Ensemble!_"

It felt like the crowd had exploded. There was so much sound that it felt like Yukari's barrier could have broken because of it.

The thought was distracting. And my fear came roaring back.

I sang with as much heart as I could manage. I knew that in a performance like this, I could afford to give no less than a hundred percent. I was doing that, but an additional ten percent was being used to remember exactly what was going to happen, and to be afraid of it.

* * *

"_You're not serious, are you?"_

_It was two days before the concert, and rehearsal was over for the day. I was eating dinner when Yukari had chosen to warp herself into the room, immediately behind Youmu. I didn't like remembering what Yukari had chosen to do to Youmu the moment she appeared, but I was pretty sure that Youmu was perfectly fine with being shooed away once the boundary youkai had stopped torturing her. Her incredibly red face and hands crossed over her chest made that obvious. Before she left the room, she had shot an embarrassed glance over at me, to which I pointedly turned away._

_Once the swordsgirl servant was gone, three more people came into the room: Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya. Reimu was somber, Marisa was relaxed yet somehow also something akin to worried, and Sakuya was neutral. And the long-winded explanation began; the three of them had come here a year ago in order to investigate an incident regarding the delayed spring. It turned out Youmu had been stealing the essence of spring in order to help the Saigyou Ayakashi bloom for the first time._

_I knew the only reason they were telling me all this was because Yuyuko had already told me her part. Now it was time to hear the full story. But it still sent shivers down my spine._

_And now, after the whole explanation was done, it was time to work out a plan. The Saigyou Ayakashi wasn't just going to sit quietly while we tried to do something about it, of course. We had to find out some way to deal with it initially until a more thorough plan was made._

_The proposed plan was not one I liked._

"_Are you even sure you want me involved in this?" I asked once the first plan was laid out. "I don't think I'll even be able to do anything to help."_

"_We don't have much of a choice," Sakuya said a bit bluntly. "I do not quite agree with it either, but you are the only other person who knows the full story behind the Saigyou Ayakashi tree. The less who know, the better, and we need all the people we can get in order for this plan to work."_

"_Well, I understand that much, but wouldn't I be much more useful some place else?"_

"_Unfortunately, no," Yukari denied. "You're much more powerful than you may think, Kaito, and with your ability, you can only get stronger. Do not doubt in yourself. Though that statement is rather redundant, considering who you are."_

_I sighed. God, how the hell was I supposed to understand something like that?_

"_You're still confused?"_

"_Of course I am. You've never told me anything about my second ability. How am I supposed to make any sense of what you just said if I don't even know what I can do?"_

"_Fair enough. You three don't mind if I explain here, do you?"_

_Marisa shook her head. She actually seemed expectant of what she would hear. Reimu and Sakuya, on the other hand, just stared blankly. That wasn't surprising, since the only one of the three I'd explained it to was Marisa._

_As quickly as possible, I gave the other two the basic rundown on my abilities._

"_Now, are you all finished?"_

_I nodded. "Now come on. Tell me. I've been waiting for several days."_

"_Very well then. Goodness, I thought you were more patient than this."_

_I blinked, unamused._

"_You don't have to stare at me like that," Yukari poked playfully. "I won't try to dodge this time. You really do need to learn more anyhow."_

_She cleared her throat._

* * *

The song was over. It was almost time.

The crowd was dying down at last.

"Thank you, everyone!" I said. "This concludes the musical portion of this Prismriver Sister concert. Again, we thank you all for coming.

"And now, the moment you all have been waiting for. The Saigyou Ayakashi is about to reach full bloom! Come on, everyone, count with me! Ten… nine…."

That was all it took. A rolling wave of voices trumped my own as they caught on. "Eight… seven…."

I smiled, and glanced back. The three Prismrivers returned the smile. Three portals were open behind them, courtesy of Yukari.

They knew.

"Six… five…"

As one, the three bowed to me. I bowed back. They all backed up into their respective portals. They had already said their goodbyes the previous day. They didn't know everything, but enough.

They were gone.

"Four…."

I glanced left. Marisa and Reimu looked back. Reimu was calm. Marisa was as grinny as usual.

"Three…."

This time, I looked right. Sakuya returned the look, with something like understanding.

"Two…."

I stared back forward. The benevolent tree almost seemed to be glaring right through me, ready to impale me the instant it was able to.

"One!"

I could practically feel the final cherry blossom on the tree bursting open.

But the crowd was already gone. Whisked away by Yukari, yet again. Not cheated. Saved.

* * *

"_So… your power that is personality-based. How about I simply explain who you are as a person, and you figure it out, hm? Your persona is much like that of a general nice guy. You always try to be kind to those around you, and seldom ever think badly of others unless they act that way towards you. Your sense of chivalry, in particular, is very strong. When it comes to treating women, you will give them as much respect and courtesy as you can offer._

"_Now this is where it'll start getting a little tougher to understand. I'm sure you don't remember this, but back in your world, there was a set of terminology relating to psychology known as the temperaments. They say that four temperaments – choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, and sanguine – dominate the actions and personality of the human mind and every person has one primary temperament, and one secondary."_

"_Oh! That sounds kinda interesting!" Marisa barged in. "Which ones am I?"_

"_Sanguine and choleric."_

_Marisa's cheerful face heightened… then dropped. "I have no idea what that means."_

"_Then please don't ask pointless questions."_

_The blond witch shrank a bit at that, though her smile never left her face._

"_Now where was I…? Ah yes. Kaito, you are of the two opposite temperaments of Marisa: phlegmatic, and melancholic. Primarily, you are of the phlegmatic temperament because you dislike being a bother to other people. While you may like having friends, you won't actively seek them out, because you'd rather not intrude on other people. Coupled with this, your mindset of that of a melancholic makes you lack self-confidence, believing yourself worthless compared to those around you. Even when you may actually have the strength or traits required to perform a certain task, you would rather someone else take the responsibility because you don't think you'll be able to, and constantly worry that you'll fail."_

_To some degree, I could agree with that. Though it certainly didn't show outwardly. I didn't act like that._

"_There's more, though. While you may not be very confident in yourself, you have some of the choleric's drive and the sanguine's friendliness. When given an objective, you'll try your best even when you believe you'll fail. If someone chooses to be your friend, you'll bond with them quickly, even though you believe someone like yourself isn't worth spending time with. The way you act on the outside is actually more of a front you put up. A facade of confidence and sometimes over-the-top idiocy to hide your lack thereof, so as to not worry those around you, which is one of the things you dislike the most._

"_This leaves you in somewhat of an odd position, because you are more driven and friendly than an average mixture of the phlegmatic-melancholic temperaments. Because you believe you lack any worth in yourself, you instead put your faith in others, specifically the friends you make and the people you meet. And it is through this faith where you draw your strength."_

_She sat there quietly, allowing it to sink in._

_So that was it? That was my power? The power to copy those I put my faith in, or were my friends?_

"_I'm not finished yet!" Yukari interrupted. "Remember how I mentioned your aura sensing ability going in tandem with your second? The reason for this is because your second ability falls under a certain set of conditions. First, you must have seen the ability or move in order to copy it, as it is not spontaneous. Second, not every move you see can be copied. Third, you must consider the person your friend, and the feeling must be mutual."_

"_But how the heck does that work then?" I asked. "Many of the people I neet barely even know who I am. How am I able to imitate their moves anyways?"_

"_I was getting to that. The first and second conditions, we can ignore, as you have seen a very wide array of the many abilities at work here in Gensokyo, and know which ones you can copy, and which ones you cannot. The third condition would normally be the only problem."_

"_Normally?" Sakuya pointed out. "You say that as if it is no problem at all."_

"_And it's not," Yukari countered bluntly. "This is where your first ability comes into play. Because you are able to sense aura at such a high degree, you are able to perceive people on a level very different from either physical contact or even talking to them. Your subconscious 'knows' the person in a way that is much more… 'intimate' than normal. To tie in with this even further, you trust people very easily, and are quick to believe some people may be your friends unless they display outright that they have little intention of doing so. As a result, the third condition that would normally be your greatest obstacle vanishes almost entirely, and you become able to replicate nearly any specific ability from any person as long as you've seen it once or twice. I would drop a reference here, but since it would make no sense to you, I'll go as far as saying that you have something akin to 'photographic reflexes' due to this combination."_

* * *

That had been what she said. I finally got my answer.

And now it was time to see if it was as good as it sounded. I had learned a couple new moves over the past couple days. Maybe they would come in handy.

The tree glowed a radiant pink, drinking in an immense amount of power as the last of its cherry blossoms accepted the air around it.

Finally, a humongous explosion of black energy blew forth, bouncing around within the domed cage it had been trapped within. If not for the barrier Yukari had set, the four of us probably would have been completely destroyed.

As it was, the entire stage that had been set up for the concert was obliterated entirely. How that had happened, I had no idea. But now the four of us were standing there in empty air, waiting.

Yuyuko had already accepted her fate long ago. The moment she was gone from the VIP box, I knew that she had already gone to the tree, ready to rejoin it. She had sent away Youmu to some place else – the Scarlet Devil Mansion, if I remembered correctly – so she would not see this happen to her. Being the obedient servant she was, Youmu had done exactly that.

The only one who had not been taken away by Yukari earlier was Aya. I had already spoken to her about part of the situation. Smelling a scoop, she was more than happy to comply. She was going to remain here, and report the entire incident once it was kicked off.

I looked behind me, and Aya was still there, snapping photos. I nodded to her. The camera dropped, and I could see a truly worried expression on the tengu's face. She hadn't been expecting it to get this bad, no doubt. But she nodded back.

Once that was done, she turned and, almost faster than the wind, ran off towards the exit, ready to make a news article of this the instant she got back.

I smiled sorrowfully. I hoped I would live long enough to see the article.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

Half a month. In fact, more than half a month. That's how long it took. This was even longer than my previous one.

At this point, I would commence with raging at my irresponsible self for letting my schedule slip so damn far, but alas, that's not happening. Ahem...

This is officially my longest chapter, capping off just above 8700 words. And here I was thinking I wouldn't be able to construct chapters longer than 5-6000 words. No, the length of the chapter was not the reason I took so much time. I simply got too caught up doing other crap, so I was writing on and off for the past few weeks. It ticks me off, really, being distracted so easily.

But really, maybe I should take a break. SomeBITGamer has been telling me to, and honestly, I could agree with him. Unfortunately, that's not really an option for me, for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that time is really starting to catch up to me. No, that doesn't mean I'm getting to old to write stuff. That's a _really_ long ways away. But I'm in my senior year of high school now. I need to start preparing for the future, which means colleges, jobs, majors, and other shit like that. Eventually, I might even lose my chance to continue this story, which I really don't want. I don't want to deal with it, but it's staring me right in the face, so I don't have much of a choice in the matter. It's down to the wire, almost; I either finish this now, or I don't finish at all.

Second, I've found that being unable to write due to a block or lack of inspiration is frustrating, but finding time to leak words into ink on a computer screen is rather relaxing. Sort of like a weird catharsis factor in my life. It keeps me from going insane, in some way. The same with books, because it gives me a chance to tear myself away from reality, even if only for a little while, and live in a fantasy I could only ever dream of. Perhaps I've become addicted to it as anyone has with drugs and such, but it's an addiction I don't want to stop.

Hehe, that sounds incredibly counter-intuitive. But that's enough of personal ranting. It's time to move on.

It's hard to believe how much I've managed to put into a single chapter. Not just in terms of progress, either. Flashbacks, references, it feels like I threw in a bit of everything in this chapter, save for combat. And frankly, despite the lack of timeliness in release, I'm LOVING it. Truthfully, if not for the fact I really _needed_ to post this soon, I would have pumped it up even more, pushing upwards of 9-10000 words.

That, of course, will come later. I'm damn sure that at least _one_ of my chapters in the future will accomplish that. I patiently await that day.

So. The exposition close to the end of the chapter. Yukari's explanation is as close to the truth as I can possibly get it. Before even starting on this story, or even getting the _basic idea_ for it, I had lots of time to spend. That time was often spent trying to figure out who I was as a person. Finding out reasons behind my actions, reactions, and so on, and discovering the many strengths and weaknesses I could possibly have. To that degree, I've managed to find quite a bit. Considerably more than many would expect, because a good amount of the human population, I think, does not wonder very much about who they are themselves. They just go around their everyday lives acting as they always do, and wait for someone else to tell them who they are. The people around us are naught but mirrors to us, after all.

This, I believe, is the reason why many believe that all fanfiction is trash, because self-insert stories are oftentimes particularly grating. I say this not only outwardly, to any/all that write self-inserts, but also to myself. A problem generally plaguing amateurs (I use the term very loosely, since I myself am still an amateur in that regard) is that while they do know themselves (since, after all, who knows you better than yourself), they sometimes over-idealize themselves, to the point where the person is no longer them anymore (for tropers, you might recognize this as either Flanderization or even a horrible judge of character if it's particularly bad). Even worse, however, is the possibility of twisting the story to suit themselves. Alternate character interpretations are fine, yes, but outright changes to the person to the point where they have little resemblance to the original are not.

(Wow, these notes are getting long. Let's see how far I can go before stopping shall we? XD)

Of course, this does not mean I'm immune to this. While it's true I'll do my best to treat others well, I'm more sarcastic/cynical in real life than portrayed here. I could easily just explain it away as 'Yukari did it' or 'My memory was wiped' but I fell victim to the same problem as many others. It's actually rather irritating, since while it holds true some of my person, it does away with the rest.

However, going back over everything in order to change it would rework the entire story to the point that it's no longer recognizable compared to now, so I'll have to live with it.

Well, could be worse, I suppose. Away from the 'intense' psychological musings now.

Yes, I totally ripped those songs from the actual games themselves. I have a semi-good reason for this, though, so expect it to come into play. To put it bluntly, remember the songs I use this chapter, then draw the parallel when it comes back the next chapter (when it comes out of course). Trust me, you'll see.

The idea for the Prismriver's outfits was not my own either. It actually comes straight from a picture used for a remix of Phantom Ensemble that I found on Youtube. If you know what picture I'm talking about, then you'll understand, but if you don't, then search up Halozy - Fantastic Imprompte and see for yourself.

Seriously, they really _are_ nice dresses (though I do still feel sorry for Lunasa. Really). When I saw them, I simply couldn't resist the chance to use them.

Alright, I've talked enough now. These notes are even longer than a few of my other chapter notes combined. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	38. Chapter 38: Destruction

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 38: Destruction**

For several seconds, the black cloud didn't dissipate, so the entire tree was completely engulfed. The barrier was surprisingly stable, not budging an inch in response.

Finally, the darkness began to do something other than bounce endlessly inside its cage; it began to gather. Condensing, focusing into a single point centered at the base of the tree, on top of the root closest to us. Even with our sight mostly obstructed, I could tell why it was gathering.

It was Yuyuko. The tree was slowly taking her in, absorbing her spiritual essence.

I wasn't sure what the other three were seeing, but the process was actually kind of gruesome. Now that she was barely being restricted by her usual ghostly body, her spirit aura was blazing out in full force, taking up almost as much space as half the darkness surrounding her, signifying how strong she really was. But even as I watched, the aura was quickly waning, with her body vanishing along with it. From the head going down, I watched Yuyuko's ghost wither and die. Gone into the aether like she was nothing more than a bit of snack food for the tree to consume before going on a rampage.

I felt disgusted. I had to sit here while I watched _and_ felt Yuyuko die away, eaten by the very darkness that I hated. In my mind, I literally felt her presence being torn apart, little by little.

And she was gone.

My eyes were shut tight, my teeth clenched. Watching something like this happen was one thing. _Feeling_ it in your head was another matter entirely.

God, Yuyuko knew this was going to happen to her? That in the face of this stupid tree, she wouldn't be able to do anything to prevent this?

If she had known this for so long, why couldn't we have come up with a plan to counter it in the time we had? We could have! But when we tried to, she had shot us down. Even Yukari had gone against it.

"Are you alright?"

"Eh?" I glanced over at Reimu in surprise. "Er, yeah… I'm fine."

Like hell I was going to try describing something like this to her. It was bad enough just knowing about it.

But then….

My eyes snapped wide open, and I stared back at the center of the whirling maelstrom.

Something was gathering. Gathering into the eye of the storm. Not just the black crap that was spraying everywhere, but something… familiar. Why was it….

Wait… was that… Yuyuko?

It couldn't be. Yuyuko just got torn apart by the ayakashi tree. How could she be….

No… her own body was the one used to seal the tree in the first place. Could it be using her spiritual essence in order to take on a physical form of its own?

God, this was just getting better and better, wasn't it?

I wasn't sure how long we stood here, waiting. It seemed to drag on for far too many hours to really count. But eventually, the gathering stopped, and there on top of the root, the same one Yuyuko had occupied just moments ago, stood another figure shrouded in black. The tree had lost all traces of ever having bloomed in the first place, now resembling nothing more than a humongous tower of dead wood that could have stood there for a millennium.

All was calm.

Very little was moving, but the air was tense, holding its own breath. Every tiny movement seemed to break the air itself. In this case, the only one moving was the humanoid shape now standing atop the root. With deliberate movements, the shadow stepped off the root, and seemed to be walking on air as she strolled down towards the four of us. In only a moments notice, she was standing but a few feet from us.

The only reason we could tell it was female was because it looked like a girl wearing an incredibly tight black jumpsuit and nothing else. Aside from that, her physical properties weren't particularly… prominent in any way.

A pair of rather large eyes opened, deep red pupils staring out. They blinked twice. Then they closed for a second.

BOOM!

The four of us shielded our eyes as the girl of darkness exploded. Black power shot off in every direction, though it didn't do anything to us directly.

The sight we were presented with was very different once we deemed it the proper time to stop covering our eyes.

Not only different, but rather bad.

The shadow now looked incredibly similar to Yuyuko. The first and most prominent difference was that she had lost her hat, and the rest of her clothes were now drenched a deep black. Parts that were white were also swapped for a deep blue color, and instead of a ghost pattern adorning the kimono, patches of bloody red diamonds were set in place. Eyes and hair that were once maroon and pink were now dyed black also. Her aura was visible as well, though not in the conventional way; hers took the form of dark streams constantly dropping of her fingertips.

I shuddered inwardly. Admittedly, this person was just as beautiful as Yuyuko, yet the knowledge that she was far more evil simply made me sick.

The ayakashi opened its mouth. I tensed slightly.

And she yawned.

A very long, drawn-out yawn that anyone would make after waking up from a very deep sleep, complete with stretching out her arms.

"Ngh…" she grunted, rubbing her closed eyes a bit and smacking her lips. Then she took her head in both hands and began twisting it. Her neck cracked multiple times in rapid succession as she turned it once each way, both managing to well surpass the ninety-degree limit of a human.

"Ah, that felt good," she breathed, rubbing her neck. "It's nice to be able to stretch like this after sleeping inside of a tree for so many centuries! How interesting, those humans, thinking they could seal me away forever~"

I could only stare blankly at her. The first thing she decides to say the moment she wakes up is muse about how nice it is to finally stretch?

For the first time, it seemed like she finally noticed the four of us standing there. She cocked her head with an amused smile on her face. "And what's this? A welcoming party just for me? What fun!"

As if perfectly rehearsed, our group shifted into our own combat stances as one, brandishing our own personal weapons.

"Oh?" the ayakashi murmured, somehow pleased. "Not a welcoming party? Then who are you, pray tell?"

"We are guardians of Gensokyo!" Reimu declared in our stead. "And we're here t-"

KA-BOOM!

What the!

Three heads snapped to their left simultaneously. A rather cheeky grin flashed back in the face of the massive rainbow explosion that just consumed the ayakashi.

"What?" Marisa asked innocently, her little Spark-firing device smoking from a freshly fired laser. "She moved and I shot, ze! Wait, I got that line wrong again…."

To be honest, I couldn't quite disagree with that line of logic. However, her declaration of war had come off as rather… abrupt.

The smoke cleared away quickly enough, and, unsurprisingly, the ayakashi was unharmed.

"My my, how rude," she cooed, dusting off her kimono. "I don't believe that's any way to greet someone who's just been resurrected. But if that's the way you wish to play, then I have a few things to say first."

The ayakashi took one step back, fading away for a moment before reappearing several feet further away. She could phase in and out of existence? Geez, that would only make it harder to hit her.

"First of all, you may call me Hanako," she said calmly, even as a wretched smile came across her lips. "Second, if you wish to fight me, I'm afraid you'll have to take care of my little servants first."

The newly-named ayakashi clapped her hands twice, and clasped them together. The darkness flowing from her hands began to gather, and once it reached a certain size, she swept them outward, and eight humongous orbs of black energy each easily the size of a person blasted out, spreading over a wide area.

One by one, the orbs dissolved, and in their places stood eight different people. Two of them, I recognized instantly: Mystia and Medicine. Two more took a bit of time: Parsee, and that other girl in a brown dress that I had met on my way down to Hell. The last four were complete strangers. The first was short and blonde, wearing a black dress, white shirt, and a crimson ribbon in her hair. Next was some sort of fairy, with icy blue hair, a deep blue dress with matching bow, and seraph-style wings. The third, I realized, looked like the firefly girl from so many nights ago, with teal hair and wearing a white dress shirt, deep blue pants, and some form of cape that could have been a cover for her wings and light. Last was someone with long blue hair, wearing a hat with peaches in it, and a very ornate white-blue dress with what looked like rainbow scales lining the hem.

Fantastic. Our chances were growing slimmer and slimmer with each passing moment. By this point, the only real course of action we could take would be for all of us to pick our targets and go one-against-two.

"Now then, 'guardians of Gensokyo', do you have any last words before you join me here in the Netherworld for good?"

"Sorry, but this won't be our place to die," I threw back.

"My mistress will be glad I eliminated a threat to her reign as queen of the night," Sakuya continued.

"I don't believe I'm a 'threat' to your mistress' reign, little maid," Hanako responded. "I would believe I've already usurped it. Please, do as you like, all of you. It'll amuse me that much more before you all join me on the darker side of life!"

As if to adhere to our own plan, the group of eight split into four groups of two, each group going after each one of us.

"Let's go, everyone!" Reimu shouted, charging. Marisa, Sakuya, and I followed immediately after.

The division of our group was quick. Sakuya chased after the first group of Mystia and the blonde girl. Medicine was paired with the firefly, and those two were confronted by Marisa. The two Hell girls, Parsee and the spider, went face-to-face with Reimu. That left me with the peach girl and the fairy.

"Come on!" I goaded, provoking them so as to move farther away from the other three. My opponents pursued with gusto, eager to begin the beatdown.

As I ran, I aimed a kick backwards, shooting off a red rocket in the direction of the peach girl. Without stopping, she whipped something out and knocked the projectile aside. Upon further observation, I realized that she was wielding some kind of straightsword.

I slid to a stop now, and drew my own blade. It wasn't nearly as long, but that wasn't really my concern. Regardless, I was getting myself into a sword fight in the next few seconds.

Peach-girl made the first move, stabbing straight for my ghost-heart. I sidestepped and slashed twice. She dodged the first, and blocked the second.

I glanced left.

_Shoot!_

I shoved the peach-girl's blade off my own and jumped backwards.

BOOM!

_Geez, what the hell is that?_

The fairy had come in swinging. Very literally. In her childlike hands was what could best be described as a greatsword forged entirely of ice. The sound that had come when she swung was the ground cracking underneath its enormous weight.

God, did I seriously have to leave myself to the weaponmeisters here?

Both stood back-to-back, readying their weapons with the tips pointed right at me. My teeth clenched, as I raised my own pitiful excuse for a blade in response. On one hand, with such a small weapon, it was going to be difficult to get close, but on the other hand, once I got close enough, it would be difficult for them to counter me, and they couldn't both engage me at once without the large possibility of hitting each other.

Apparently, however, the latter of those two advantages I held didn't seem to matter very much to my opponents. Both of them charged immediately.

Peach-girl took the front, hacking and slashing. What I couldn't block, I dodged. Somehow, this proved rather easy, as while she struck quickly, her form was rather lacking in structure, and her attacks came wildly. The difficult part came whenever the ice fairy jumped in; her attacks were even more lacking in skill, but that was made up for in raw power. Any time her ice sword hit the ground, a rather large crack would be left behind, whether on hard dirt or solid stone. Even the thought of _trying_ to block that monstrosity was out of the question.

There was nothing for it. I just kept getting pushed back by the pair, unable to stop the weapon-wielding juggernaut. I had no opportunity to attack, and neither showed any sign of slowing down. I wasn't tiring out in any way, due to being a ghost, but that wouldn't make a difference if I couldn't make use of my infinite energy supply.

Suddenly, I realized that the ice fairy wasn't attacking. I attempted to press the advantage, diving in on the peach-girl and slashing once. In a single smooth motion, she whirled over to one side, dodging me completely.

I realized too late what was going to happen.

"_氷の雨で私の敵にシャワーを浴び！ __Ice Sign: Icicle Machine Gun!"_

_Crap!_

_Shunk!_

"Agh!"

I barely had time to register the sword stabbed into my left foot before the ice fairy opened fire.

_PTATATATATATA!_

The individual icicles didn't hurt too much, but that was made up for in superior numbers. I had no idea how many actually hit me, but that hardly mattered; between the splattering of pain all over my body alongside the sword in my foot, it didn't make the slightest difference.

By the end of it, I was on one knee, unable to bring my other to the floor. Even as a ghost, that had hurt like hell.

With a painful grunt, I grasped the sword by the blade and, not caring in the slightest that it was cutting into my hand, yanked it out.

Goddamnit… in a single move, the pair had nearly crippled me. At this rate, I would be the first to die.

As if to assert that notion, something heavy smashed into me from the side, sending me tumbling for several meters. My grip on the sword nearly broke in surprise, but I held on, driving it deeper into my hand in the process.

Once I slid to a stop, I did my absolute best to stand up, putting more weight on the foot that didn't have a hole in it.

As tenderly as possible, I opened the hand that had the sword in it. I flinched at the sight; it was completely drenched in white blood, and it felt like the wound was pulsing with pain.

With a grunt, I ripped my cravat off my neck and wrapped it around the wound. It wasn't much, but it would do for now.

Besides, hopefully it wasn't going to matter in a few minutes.

I gripped my newfound weapon in one hand, leaving my mostly useless left hand open. I couldn't hold anything with it, and palm blasts were out of the question, but that didn't mean I couldn't use it.

To make sure my enemies realized that, I shot of a volley of water bullets in the direction of the ice fairy.

BOOM!

_Oh come on, that's hardly fair._

Before the bullets had even gotten close, a massive stone with papers tied to it – a keystone, if I remembered correctly – had dropped out of the sky, blocking them all off.

A second after, the stone disappeared, and peach-girl walked back into view, several smaller keystones floating around her as well. I realized that she must have thrown one of them at me earlier.

That didn't make very much sense. I thought keystones were supposed to have some kind of holiness surrounding them. If that was the case, what was this girl doing using them as weapons?

But I didn't have time to worry about that. I raised the sword slightly. Even as I held the weapon, I could feel some kind of power pulsing within. It seemed to be reverberating with… the earth?

I gritted my teeth. Maybe I could use that to my advantage later. But perhaps not, since trying to copy something the peach-girl might have done before was far out of the range that my own copying skill could reach. Regardless, having a better weapon in hand was slightly comforting.

Peach-girl struck first once more, chucking three keystones my way. I dodged the first, and deflected the other two. Both bounced harmlessly off the blade with two loud clangs.

The two had been surprisingly easy to knock away. I thought they would take at least a little effort, but the sword had batted them away like toys. Seriously, what was this thing made out of? It was far lighter than I had expected of a weapon of this size, yet was durable enough to smack away keystones without so much as a scratch.

Well, not like I was going to complain about it.

After a couple more keystone assaults, the ice fairy began to charge.

I couldn't help but think that the ice fairy was an idiot by this point; she was charging without any back-up.

The first swing, I sidestepped easily. The second sent me jumping backwards. My left foot nearly gave way entirely as my weight drove it against the floor. As it was, I lost my balance, almost toppling over.

Dodging the third, overhead swing required me to jump into the air, sailing far above the reach of the blade.

CRACK!

The blade sank deeply into the ground.

And the ice fairy couldn't pull it out. She yanked at the handle with every bit of strength she could muster, but the greatsword wouldn't budge.

I silently noted once more that this fairy was an idiot. If she had the ability to create or manipulate ice, she could've just broken it apart then reassembled it, or even forged an entirely new one.

Not my problem. I seized my opportunity, belting out an immense battle cry. The fairy caught on too late.

The sword came down at the same time as when I hit the floor, slashing the fairy cleanly in half.

As was supposedly standard for duels in Gensokyo, the fairy didn't fall apart into two gory halves spitting blood everywhere (and thank god for that). Instead, she simply pitched over, and lay still.

I breathed a sigh of relief. That was one down. I could only imagine how painful it was to have the feeling of being bisected running through you.

Then something began pulling on me at the back of my mind.

My head snapped over, staring off in the direction of the main house of Hakugyokoro. It was almost time.

When I glanced back over, the face of the peach-girl was rather murderous. I grimaced a bit; I hadn't thought she would be so ticked off by me suddenly downing her team member.

That wasn't my prime concern, however. Now that the sensation had started, I had to finish this up quickly, or I'd risk burdening one of the other three with an extra problem.

I spun the sword once, and planted it into the floor. My right hand casually slipped into my pocket, while my injured left hand made a gesture, obviously provoking the peach-girl into a head-on fight.

She took the bait readily, summoning about five more keystones, each at least the size of a head, and ran at me, the stones spinning around her person like satellites.

Unfortunately for her, it didn't quite matter. My card had already broken apart in my pocket. When the words of power came echoing out, it was already too late for her.

"_O Dea Lunar ablue re sua vincula! Break Sign: Flood of Insanity!"_

She didn't seem fazed by my incantation, and even seemed to be charging at me even faster in order to beat me to it. But she was too slow; my eyes closed for a second, and snapped back open.

For several seconds, peach-girl completely froze, stunned by the sudden blast of light from my eyes. Her keystones hit the floor with heavy thuds.

Uncomprehending, she began to back up, not knowing what kind of dimension she had been suddenly shoved into

I winced. I still didn't really like the function of this card, but now I understood where the effect had come from; it was a conjunction between Nitori's aquamancy and Reisen's madness-inducing eye. In much the same way, my _Time Storm_ card drew from Sakuya's time manipulation, Nitori's power again, and Aya's aeromancy.

It made me wonder what my newest card used. Judging from the name, it drew partially from Utsuho's power, though I wasn't sure what the other parts could be. I'd have to figure that out once I used it. But now wasn't the time.

I closed my eyes, allowing the drawing sensation to completely overtake me. From my toes going up, I could feel myself fading away, little by little….

* * *

I snapped open my eyes once again. The scene I saw now was incredibly different. It was the ceiling of Yuyuko's house.

"Kaito-san?"

Five heads leaned over me all at once.

I blinked twice, staring up slightly uncomprehending.

Then something clicked in my head, and I felt like I remembered exactly what had happened.

I sat up with a start, nearly knocking heads with two or three people. Tenderly, I rested a hand on my chest.

"Breathing lungs… beating heart…."

I pushed down with my other hand, and it didn't go through. I grinned widely.

"Physical presence… I'm back in the game!"

I practically jumped to my feet, wiggling my legs and arms, trying to get back the feeling of having blood pumping through my veins once more. At the same time, I appreciated that Yukari had changed my clothes on my physical body to match those given to me as a ghost, feeling the soft linens on my skin.

Man, it felt good!

I whirled around to finally greet the five who had brought me back to life.

"Thank you all so much!" I said quickly, bowing at them.

Byakuren returned the bow. "Of course. It's the least I can do for you, after saving the life of one of my followers."

"That's right," Nazrin echoed. "This is repayment for helping get rid of that shadow inside of me."

I nodded, smiling a bit deviously. "I know. Don't get too wrapped up around Shou-san, now."

"Hey, that's not very fair," interrupted said tiger as the mouse blinked in surprise. "We're taking it slowly, aren't we, Nazrin?"

"E-eh?"

"Hey, knock it off," Minamitsu cut in. She readjusted the anchor over her shoulder and smiled at me. "Right now, it's time to kick some ass!"

I nodded, losing a bit of my smile. "Yeah. But if I may, I want to ask all of you to leave Hakugyokoro."

"What?" Ichirin blurted out before everyone else. "But why? Won't numbers help you in defeating this menace?"

"Maybe," I agreed. "But I don't want any more people involved in this than there has to be. As it is, the four of us have the situation under control. I appreciate the notion, but I want to keep the casualties at a minimum if there will be any. So please, I want you five to leave here now."

A set of different reactions came at once, each ranging from concern to grim acceptance.

"If that is your wish, then we shall respect it," Byakuren said with finality, bowing once more. "We wish you luck in defeating this monster."

"Yeah," Minamistu agreed, knocking me on the head with her ladle. "Don't get yourself posessed again, got that?"

"I know, I know," I said sheepishly, scratching my head.

Though it sounded lighthearted, Minamitsu was being very serious about that. In order to bring me back to life, the crew had traveled to Eientei in order to seek help from Kaguya. The result involved borrowing her cowrie shell in order to supply a veritable fountain of holy energy with which to cleanse my body. The problem was, this process would only work once, according to Eirin, since normally, a holy cleanse like this was just as likely to harm the spirit within the body as it was to help, due to how much power it required. Since half my spirit wasn't even in my own body, it was a much more plausible method, but now that it had been used once, any other attempt in the future would most likely prove too strenuous for my physical _kon_ to withstand, and would probably wind up wiping half my spirit out of existence.

Considering the way spirits worked, this basically meant I would be destroying the bodily core used to inhabit a physical body. Not good. It was the general consensus that we'd like to avoid that.

"Thank you all," I said once more, waving farewell. "Please, give my thanks to Kaguya-hime as well."

As I left the room, I heard a loud "We will!" follow me out the door.

* * *

_Whew, this path feels a lot longer, now that I'm not a ghost anymore._

That was my first thought jogging along the path leading to the ayakashi tree. It was mostly because I wasn't a ghost anymore that I felt that way; aside from no longer being an ethereal being that didn't require physical energy to move, I hadn't used my actual legs in about a week. Now I was trying to move them, and it felt labored, stiff, as if I was in the body of someone several times older than me. I was sure the stiffness would only last a few hours, since I hadn't spent _that_ much time being dead. At least this way, I would get reaccustomed to physical movement faster.

But that wasn't all. Thanks to my accumulated injuries before being shoved back into my body, my left foot hurt with every step, my left hand still felt pain shooting through it, and a large part of my torso was incredibly sore.

_I wonder how the other three are doing._

Considering how much stronger they were than me, I was pretty sure I was probably the last one to take care of the two enemies I had been given.

I had a feeling I was at least halfway there, when I saw something off in the distance, coming straight at me.

_Wait a minute, is that…?_

"Hey! Reimu-san!"

Sure enough, as I continued to run, the red-white off in the distance continued to come closer. Soon after, I realized there was someone in black-white, Marisa, following closely behind.

"What the heck is going on, you two?" I asked the moment I met them. Both looked incredibly exhausted and, judging from the clothing damage taking by both, rather injured.

"Too… strong…" Reimu breathed. "We… had to run."

That severely worried me. If this thing was too strong even for Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya to take care of together, then how were we supposed to beat it later?

That thought was knocked out of my head in an instant. "Sakuya's still..." Marisa continued, just as short of breath.

I didn't need to hear any more.

But just before I could start sprinting past, the two of them barred my path.

"What're you doing?" Marisa asked. "We're supposed to… be getting out of here… right now, ze!"

"I'm not leaving Sakuya-sama behind."

"Are you an idiot?" Reimu jabbed. "Sakuya's still there to… hold the floor while we escape. You can't just charge back in!"

"Really? Watch me!" I started running again, but two hands slammed into my chest, stopping me. I was reminded again that I was indeed alive.

"Don't be stupid!" Marisa denied. "Even the three of us together weren't enough. What makes you think you'll do any better as two?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it, gritting my teeth. Goddamnit, she had a point there. But….

"I don't expect to do any better," I admitted. "But I'm not just going to run away and leave Sakuya-sama to die. All four of us are getting out of here alive if I have anything to say about it!"

Before either could object further, I jumped, taking flight over the two defeated heroes of Gensokyo. I didn't give a damn about what they said; I was going to try and save Sakuya.

There wasn't much distance left between me and the tree. Then I remembered something, and started glancing around the beaten path.

Ah, there it is!

I started diving, making a beeline for a specific section of the path. When I hit the floor, I took a quick scan of the area.

The peach-girl and ice-fairy were still here. The fairy was still knocked out cold, while the peach-girl seemed to be likewise. I hadn't quite expected the madness-inducing power of my card to be so strong; my main intention of using the card had been to disable her until I managed to come back. But at least that meant one less threat to worry about.

On top of that, it meant that her weapon was still left exactly where I had planted it.

I withdrew the sword and examined it more closely. Other than being solid yellow in color all the way down to the handle, it didn't look any different from a standard Chinese straightsword. That obviously wasn't quite the case, though, and it was easy to tell that some sort of power rested in it that I couldn't quite figure out. Now that I was calming down a little to examine it a little further, it actually wasn't quite resonating with the earth anymore. But if that wasn't it, then what was?

I shook my head. No time to worry about that now; I was here for a different reason other than just picking up a nifty weapon.

My grip on the handle tightened, and I took off in the direction of the tree, making sure to hold the sword in a way so I wouldn't get myself killed.

"Sakuya-sama!"

My yell went unheard. I was close enough for her to hear, I knew that.

Apparently, she was too caught up in something else to even bother with hearing me. And I realized that once I got close enough.

_Oh crap…._

My teeth clenched and I began sprinting.

Hanako looked like the center of a venomous flower, thorny vines sprouting from behind her that looked sharp enough to puncture the earth itself. She looked entirely relaxed, at peace with the world she was invading. A set of several vines were outstretched, gathering at a single point in the sky where they were encircled tightly around a single person.

"Heeeeey!"

The ayakashi finally seemed to take notice of me. Without stopping, I immediately kicked twice, sending two red rockets shooting out. As expected neither did a thing; both were swiped through by a thorned tendril. This time, I fired out a volley of water. A wall of vines forged itself, allowing the bullets to splash harmlessly off.

I jumped, sailed through the air, and slashed, slicing through the dark bonds.

As the vines faded away, the body began to fall, and I quickly swept underneath to catch it.

"Sakuya-sama!"

Her eyes were only half open, and even then it felt like they weren't seeing anything. Then her head tilted slightly to look at me. "Kaito-san… what're you…."

"I'm getting you out of here, that's what," I finished.

"Oh no you don't!"

BOOM!

I grinded to a halt in midair. Oh, hell no.

A massive barrier of thorns barred our way out, stretching all the way into the sky so I couldn't simply fly over it. I glanced left and right, only to see the wall as far as I could see both ways.

Crap.

"Now what fun would it be if you simply left without even bothering to stay and play?"

My teeth clenched as I turned back around. The smile on Hanako's face was somehow soft and murderous at the same time. While what she said may have been playful, she had every intention of making sure we didn't get out of this alive.

"Let's play a little game, shall we? I'm going to try to kill your friend, boy. You can pick any place around here to set her down and defend her. If you can keep her alive for one minute, then I'll let you go. How does that sound?"

I grimaced. Damn it, now that she had us here, she could play with our lives to her heart's content. It seemed almost far too obvious that she wouldn't hold up her side of the deal once this was all over, yet there was nothing I could do about it either way.

"You don't believe me, do you?" she cooed, as if having read my mind. "Don't worry your little head. I'm not so dishonorable so as to betray a condition I myself set. I'm not the chaotic kind of person."

That in no way managed to convince me. Yet there was no other possible way out. Even if it was a lie, I'd have to reach for it, no matter how slim the chance was that it actually wasn't.

"Fine," I agreed. "I'll play your little game."

"Wonderful~" she said cheerfully. "Choose wisely now; I'm only giving you a minute."

Only a minute, huh? Well, I already knew where I would go.

I dropped down to ground level and strode over to the wall. The moment I got there, I laid Sakuya down between a set of thorns, leaning her against the wall. One side covered; I only had to protect her from the front and sides.

"Why…" Sakuya breathed when my hands were no longer touching her. "Why did you… come back?"

"Didn't I already say? I said I came back to get you out of here."

"You fool…. You should have… saved yourself… along with Reimu and Marisa."

I smiled just a little. "They said the same thing. But Hell will freeze over before I let someone important to me just die like this. I don't care if I'm being an idiot; if I can save you, I will."

She stared at me, uncomprehending. Most likely wondering how such a huge idiot could have possibly made it past the border between the outer world and here. Truthfully, I had been wondering about that long before, and I didn't have the answer either.

In the end, she sighed. "Idiot…."

The time for prevention had already passed, though; it was time for me to make up for my own stupidity. Or at least, try to.

I rose with a sense of conviction clinging to my chest; I had a feeling that this would be my last stand. It was do or die, by this point, and to fail meant the first two drops of blood to be spilled in a humongous war.

If I was going down with Sakuya, then I was going down with honor.

"I'm ready," I said to Hanako, raising my sword to head level, parallel to the ground, and my other hand in front of my face.

It seemed that Hanako had decided it better to be courteous and meet me at my level, having stepped down from the tree root. The tendrils of darkness were gone, but that didn't make her any less threatening. Her aura was small, but it was an all-encompassing black hole, threatening to swallow all of Hakugyokoro in its gravity, and Sakuya and I were well past the event horizon.

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be worried about the fact I was used to the smell by this point.

In a single hand spawned an enormous black flower, shaped like a lily with large leaves at its base and similarly-large petals. As one, the petals all burst off the leafy base, scattering through the air like fireflies. Before I could even think of a possible use for something like that, the petals morphed, transforming into an immense group of shuriken stars. At that, they hung still, as if forming a dark constellation spelling out death for the two of us.

The quartet of leaves in her hand had sharpened out in much the same way. Her other hand dropped a small orb of darkness into the floor, and a second flower grew there. I realized then that this was her way of toying with us; she could spawn as many flowers as she liked, throw as many black shuriken in any given moment as she wanted, as fast as she felt like going. We had become her shooting gallery.

"As am I," she said at last. "Let us begin!"

She didn't even try with the first few, tossing them leisurely at me with no intention of doing any damage. I blocked them easily, allowing them to bounce off the sword without a problem, or even outright slashing them away. Then, without warning, she threw one at fever pitch, aiming straight for my head. I still managed to deflect it, but it had come so fast that I was knocked off balance, the sword nearly flying out of my hands.

"Oh my, so tired so quickly?" she teased, lobbing a couple more my way. The other flower had already split apart, adding a second salvo to an already impressive arrangement of stars. "This isn't any fun; I want you to entertain me!"

At that, she took one in each hand, and chucked both. With great difficulty, I swept my sword through, knocking aside both. The effort left my arms feeling slightly numb.

She returned to her single-shot tactics once more, but with each one she threw, she added greater strength to it. The barrage grew steadily harder to block with each passing one.

Her next pitch came as a line of three. I slashed through the middle one, and heard the thuds of the other two embedding themselves into the wall.

The following volley came with unrelenting force, Hanako seeming to flourish and dance with each new throw, turning a deadly projectile into a beautiful art. Each swipe of a hand sent another shuriken my way, whether thrown by her hand, or sent out sailing straight out of midair at uneven intervals. Once, she assaulted with a hailstorm of darkness, leaving me nearly unable to block them all.

She deliberated for a single moment, and I raised the sword with tired arms. My muscles were sore from having blocked so many shuriken.

Her throw came like chain lightning, blasting the sword completely out of my hands.

_Shit!_

"Looks like this is game over for you," Hanako said delightedly, taking one last shuriken in her hands as the others dissipated into nothingness.

Fear washed over my body, and I raised my arms as a last line of defense.

I was going to die here….

"Farewell~"

_Whiii-KRNCH!_

The sound of ones bones snapping under stress.

But they weren't my own.

I opened my eyes.

_No… Oh my god, no!_

"Sakuya!"

The perfect, elegant maid of the Scarlet Devil Mansion looked at me with wild eyes.

And she crumpled.

"SAKUYAAAAA!"

The shuriken had disappeared, leaving her lying on the floor, a pool of blood quickly spreading out underneath.

"NO!" I yelled, dropping to my knees. "Why! Why did you do that!"

"I'm… sorry…." She was barely breathing. "I… wanted… to do… something meaningful… before dying."

I couldn't respond. My tears came too fast, too furious to even think of saying anything.

"You were… courageous, Kaito-san…. Thank you… for trying… to protect me."

I shook my head. No… this couldn't be happening.

"Here…."

One hand tugged slightly on my sleeve. I looked over, and saw a small silver pocket watch in Sakuya's hand.

"Please… take it… bring it back… to my mistress…."

My shaky hand reached out to the silver circle.

"Mother… Father…."

Her hand went limp, just before I reached it.

Something broke. I think it was me.

I could hardly even feel the silver in my hand as I held it. My vision was completely shot; too many tears were streaming out for me to even know what was what anymore.

A strange numbness had seized hold of me. Nothing felt right. I couldn't feel much of anything. All that held on was blinding, crushing despair.

No… how could she….

Why would she save me…? I wasn't even worth anything….

Why…?

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

The despair began to change, shifting from guilt to unrepentant rage. This was nothing like the time I had watched Nitori block those poison darts so long ago; this time, Sakuya was dead, and I was _furious_.

The hand that didn't have a watch between its fingers was clenching hard enough to draw blood. I hadn't even realized that I'd gotten to my feet.

"You…."

I raised my right hand, the one with Sakuya's pocket watch. From my knuckles sprouted four individual energy fountains, resembling a set of razor claws.

My anger needed an outlet. A place to be channeled.

This was it.

"_I'm going to KILL YOU!"_

I barely even had a chance to move.

The moment I began my charge, tendrils of darkness appeared from the floor and lashed out, seizing my arms. I yanked on them as hard as I could, refusing to let something like this stop me.

Another one strapped onto my leg, driving my left knee into the floor. Then my left knee.

I was trapped, just like that.

"My my, how spirited you are," Hanako observed, slowly striding closer.

I growled venomously. If I could just get my arm free….

"I know you lost my little game, but I feel it a shame to let such fire die away."

"And what the hell is that supposed to mean, huh?" I spat.

She didn't hear me. For a moment she was contemplating.

"Perhaps… yes, that would work…."

Now what?

She grinned maliciously, raising a single finger. In a couple seconds, black energy coated it, focusing into a sharp drill-like tip extending at least three inches.

Oh no….

"A life for a life…."

Before I could even cry out, she stabbed her finger into my forehead.

_KRA-KOOM!_

Her finger drew away. The moment she did, my chin hit my chest.

The tentacles of darkness likewise receded, my arms dropping to the floor.

"And there we go."

My legs refused to move, overcome by numbness. But feeling was slowly coming back.

"How is it?"

I raised my head to Hanako, not knowing my eyes had shifted color, changing from dull brown to a bloody red.

And I smiled.

She extended a hand out to me. "I wish to subject the world of Gensokyo to my whims. Once that has been done, I shall extend my hand outward to the other world, and remerge the two into one once more, both under my rule. A glorious empire extending across the ages.

"Will you help me?"

One of my legs began to move, shifting into a kneeling position, as a knight would before his liege or lady. I took Hanako's hand in my own, kissing it once, and placing it to my forehead.

"I am yours to command."

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

*Shower my enemy with a hail of ice!

**Oh, Lunar Goddess, wash away their ties to reality!

I will express this first and foremost of all: FREAKIN' FINALLY! Holy crap, this took so goddamn long! I hadn't expected my senior year to be so damn difficult, but after so many weeks of slaving away at the computer, trying to find the motivation to write this and going on-and-off, I finally have this!

I hope I'm not catching any other people at inopportune moments, like too much schoolwork or anything like that.

But damn, if this wasn't hard. I don't know why, but trying to describe the many parts of this chapter was really, _really_ difficult. I seem to simply have trouble with Hakugyokoro, I guess. On top of that, I usually try to envision environments beyond that of the norm; that is to say, I try to look at the places of Gensokyo in a way that's less obvious than presented in-game. Unfortunately, I need a fairly steady base to work off of, otherwise I'll just be winging it. In the cases of the SDM or the Hakurei shrine, for example, I had fairly decent descriptions to build on, while Hakugyokoro was kind of a free realm for me to describe however I wished. As such, oddly enough, being given _freedom_ is far more difficult for me as opposed to having some forms of _restrictions._ Weird.

In the end, however, I'm satisfied.

I'm not sure if I should, but I think I'll spell this out: yes, Sakuya and Yuyuko are truly dead. Yes, I'm fully aware that I just screwed over two of the biggest characters in the whole Touhouverse, and believe me, I actually do feel guilty for it. Unfortunately for those two, this was how the story played out in the end, and I could think of no way of going around it. To all the fans of Sakuya Izayoi and Yuyuko Saigyouji out there, I sincerely apologize.

*sniff* Well, moving on now...

For those who actually remember (since the last chapter was so damn long ago), remind yourself that I had the songs from the previous chapter lined up with this one (for those who don't remember, here I am telling you again). If you're still missing it, I'll give a healthy hint; look at the eight I chose to have show up under Hanako's command, then look back at the five songs I chose before.

Found it? Yes? No? Well, either way...

I'll state it here that part of the end scene is a very direct shout-out to the Bunnykill series. Honest to god, when I watched the series (again, a few days back) and saw that happen, I almost instinctively knew it was going into the story. Don't know what I'm talking about? Watch the series. To those who don't know it, yes, it's exactly what it sounds like, and is still incredibly adorable in many ways some wouldn't think possible. Those who know what I'm talking about, I'll say only this; Flint was an epic badass. 'Nuff said.

My next chapter, I actually _already have written out_, so expect it to be typed up (with revisions from the draft, of course) within a matter of days as opposed to weeks. I once again apologize for being so late (my schedule slip is horrible...), and I hope you enjoyed this chapter~

...

*sniffle* Sakuya-sama...


	39. Chapter 39: Darkness Abound

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 39: Darkness Abound**

_Even under clouds of darkness, the cherry blossoms remain beautiful…._

It made me wonder why I had even fought for the other side. If beauty could still be wrought from darkness the same way it could from light, then what difference did it make?

Quite a bit, apparently. Enough of a difference for me to be fighting for the 'light' side three days ago. That is, until Hanako showed me a better way.

But that wouldn't matter anymore. I was the ninth of the legion, and ever since I was converted, one of the strongest fighters of all of Gensokyo was now dead. With time, the rest of the world would fall to us, as would the world outside the Great Hakurei Barrier. Unison under a single ruler did not seem too far away.

And unlike past attempts, this one would be absolute. Hanako would leave nothing to spare, erasing those who resisted and controlling those who did not, with her own private army of Gensokyo at her beck and call. The youkai that did not subject themselves to her rule would be subsequently eradicated.

It would be glorious!

I smiled as a small congregation of cherry blossom petals settled into my hand. I had a feeling that once this was all over, cherry blossom viewing would easily be my favorite pastime. The calm of watching hundreds of flower petals falling all around me was… invigorating, even after three days of doing little else. Sure, I sparred on occasion with the other eight members of the group, but aside from that, it was mostly me and the flower petals. I'd certainly miss them once spring ended.

Perhaps… it would be even better to have someone to enjoy it with….

_Kaito-kun!_

"Agh!"

The petals cascaded from my hand as I clutched my head in discomfort. Not again….

I evened out my breathing, closing my eyes as I tried to erase the image of the blue-haired kappa girl that refused to leave me alone. My fingers pressed into the tree I was leaning against, as if attempting to channel the image out of sight and out of mind, into the bark.

This girl… what was her name again? Nitori? Geez, all she did was travel with me before, right? Gah, this was getting annoying. Over the past three days, she always popped into my head at least once a day, sometimes at the most inopportune moments (like trying to dodge a shot of poison from Medicine). While she wasn't the only one to do this, she was easily the most prominent and distracting, sending a headache every time she came around

This didn't make any sense. Why was she popping into my head so often? I wasn't supposed to have such negative repercussions from being drawn to the dark side, was I…?

"Hey!"

Ah, just what I needed; a voice to snap me out of my headache. How convenient.

I pushed off the tree and turned around. It was the peach-girl, Tenshi Hinanawi. Whatever reason she came out here for this time aside from talking to me, I couldn't quite discern. But her arms were crossed, and she looked at me with disdain, as if I'd just commited some atrocious crime.

"What the heck are you doing out here this time?"

How irritating; was it really necessary to question me on something so trivial? She did this every time she found me out here, and that was fairly often. While the other seven seemed fine with leaving me alone after asking me once, Tenshi seemed to deem it not-so-redundant to question me every time she came out.

At the same time, it seemed rather interesting; why would she feel the need to talk to me on such a regular basis?

Regardless, I responded "Watching the cherry blossoms, as usual. Though it escapes me as to why you'd ask after finding me out here so many times."

"Well, what kind of idiot would stay out in a field for hours on end just to watch cherry blossoms?"

"Me, apparently," I laughed. "There's just something soothing about having the cherry blossoms falling endlessly around. I'll miss them when the season's over, so I'm enjoying them while I can, you know?"

"What's so special about them?" Tenshi jabbed. "They're just flowers."

I didn't answer.

She sighed, her eyes having not lost their cross look. "Whatever. Hime-sama wants to see you, so get in there, now."

"Fine, fine." Sheesh, how annoying. Hanako could have sent anyone to be a messenger, and she chose the one who seemed to dislike me the most. Even Parsee's jealousy didn't seem to stretch that far, and she disliked everyone.

I sighed, and with easy strides, I walked over, making my way towards the main house. Just before I passed, Tenshi stopped me.

"What?" I asked somewhat roughly.

Her initial glare's intensity had ratcheted up a couple notches. She wasn't quite looking at me with disdain anymore.

"Give me back the Sword of Hisou."

Ah, so she wanted her sword back. That only seemed natural; after I had turned myself over, I had kept her weapon on my person, even asking Tenshi for lessons on its functions. At Hanako's command, she grudgingly taught me more about it, though it was incredibly easy to tell that she hated having to teach someone else about how to use her own sword. Now that we were surely alone, she wanted to take it back, by force, or otherwise.

It made me wonder why she had even consented to teach me in the first place, aside from receiving the order from Hanako.

I chuckled. "You know that's not going to happen."

Her grip on my shoulder tightened significantly. Her next words were punctuated like hammer blows. "Give me back my sword!"

I didn't give an inch, looking straight back with an expression of extreme calm. "But I won it from you fair and square. That means the sword is mine, doesn't it?"

Our gazes held. Tenshi bared her teeth at me, as if ready to sink them into my neck.

But after a short staring contest, she relented. While her gaze didn't lose its poisonous content, she shoved me away, finally giving up.

How nice. I hadn't expected her to let me go. Even after only three days of knowing her, I could already tell that Tenshi was the stubborn, spoiled-rotten type. She got what she wanted, when she wanted it, and being refused was not something she was used to. Yet when she was trying to get back something she used to posess from someone she harbored negative impressions of, she had yielded. Why, I wondered.

Perhaps I should test something….

I smiled slightly, and began walking once more.

Just when I passed, a murder look crossed my face.

And before Tenshi could react, my hand was at her throat.

Her head made a satisfying crack as I shoved her into a nearby tree. Before she could even catch her breath, I leaned in close, exhaling a small purple cloud for Tenshi to inhale.

In a short moment, her body grew heavy. When I relinquished hold my hold on her neck, she simply slid to the floor.

"Wha…" she uttered, astonished. I could tell she was trying to move, but she wasn't succeeding. "What the hell did you do to me?"

"Paralyzing poison," I responded, my smile having grown devious. "Courtesy of Medicine Melancholy. Guaranteed to quickly disable muscular function without inhibiting neural capacity and sensory nerves by too much. Short duration, but very effective."

It was only out of pure luck that I learned this move; when Medicine had tried to use it against me during a sparring match, I had managed to get out of the way before the cloud got too close. Now, it was proving useful in other ways.

Tenshi's teeth and glare came back full force. "You bastard! Why are you doing this!"

I laughed. "Why, Tenshi? I think you should know why…."

Without pause, I seized her hands, pushed her wrists together, and focused. A sphere of blue light enveloped her wrists in an instant, and when it receded, it was replaced by a solid block of blue ice, locking her arms in place.

"Hey!" Tenshi shouted indignantly. "What're you – whoa! Oof!"

In response to her question, I cut her off by picking her up by the arms and yanking her over to one side, throwing her to the ground. Her ending position was rather… inviting. Provocative.

Her expression grew worried. "W-wait, wha-"

WHI-SHING!

The Sword of Hisou was at her throat, proving that her lessons had really done something. Her eyes went wide, and she fell silent.

"You said you wanted it back, right?" I mused, the blade hovering just a twitch away from nicking her skin.

"No no, it's fine!" she pleaded, panicked. "Y-you can keep my sword, I don't mind! Really!"

"Hahaha, how foolish!" I jeered. "You put on a brave face, and yet the moment you become helpless, you turn into a coward."

Tenshi said nothing. I moved the sword away from her vulnerable neck.

"But… I really must thank you for allowing me to keep this. Perhaps I shoud… repay you for it."

Once more drawing from Tenshi's own lessons on how to use the sword, I slashed the air once with it, and it instantly changed into an entirely different weapon; a six-foot long whip.

I pulled on the lash, sadistic desires boiling up as I checked the whip's strength.

"The others tell me that you seem to enjoy feeling pain," I hissed, my malicious smile stretching even wider. I cracked the whip once on the floor before raising my arm, my intent crystal clear.

Tenshi's eyes glazed over with fear. "W-wait, Kaito, th-that's not true! I-I don't – no, please, do-"

WH-PSSH!

"_Aaaaaah!_ No, sto-"

WH-PSSH!

"_Aaaaagh!_ I-I beg of y-"

WH-PSSH!

"_Gaaaaah!_ Please…."

"No."

For only an instant, I drank in her look of terror.

WH-PSSH!

"_Kyaaaaaaaah!"_

Again and again, I struck, laying Tenshi low with an avalanche of blows. With each lash, her pleas grew smaller, and her cries grew louder. I took care to aim well, making sure her face remained untouched as the rest of her body experienced the searing bite of my whip.

I must have lashed her at least twenty times before lowering my arm at last. My breaths were quick, but hers were moreso, ragged, heavy. Her entire body shivered as tears streamed freely down her face. Her clothes had become tattered, torn in several places.

I hadn't quite been expecting it, but… that had felt incredible. The energy I had felt reigning dominant over another person, the exhilaration of subjecting them to my will… I'd never felt so alive! Was this what I would experience once Hanako's reign over the world was established?

I couldn't wait. But now, it was time to see if my partner had felt the same or not.

The whip passed to my off-hand, and I knelt over the broken, shivering Tenshi. My free arm went under and lifted her up. Her bound hands remained limp on the floor.

I gently examined her face as she lifted her head up to meet my gaze. Stars were glittering in her eyes, hot breath escaping her soft lips at uneven intervals. But they spoke not of agony.

They spoke of ecstasy.

"So…" I said softly, just loud enough for her to hear. "How did that feel, Tenshi?"

She didn't answer immediately, instead averting her eyes as if out of shame. I could not blame her; according to the others, Tenshi was supposed to be a Celestial, someone who had ascended to and lived in Heaven. To say she had found my whipping pleasurable would mean she was admitting to the fact she had engaged in – and enjoyed – activity unbecoming of one of her status. But to do so otherwise would mean she was denying her true nature.

It would be a shame if the latter were to happen.

I smiled lightly, encouraging her to embrace that which lay within. "Well?"

I lifted her chin with the butt of my whip.

She stared at me with confusion, unsure of what to say. I could easily see that all she needed was a little push.

And without hesitation, I kissed her.

When I parted, her expression was entirely different; Tenshi was stunned, shocked by my sudden attack. But the change was nearly immediate; behind her eyes were turning gears, working out an answer.

"It felt…" she began.

I smiled expectantly.

"It felt… amazing," she let out at least. Her hands came up and rested against my chest. "Your reward… my punishment… I took it all. It hurt, but… it felt… so good!"

My expectance turned to pride. The whip vanished, stored away on my person once more. I lay a hand upon her frozen manacles, and shattered them, rubbing her wrists to help blood and heat circuldate once more.

"You did magnificently," I complimented. "Was this your first time partaking in this sort of activity?"

She nodded.

"Then we have something in common."

The statement seemed to surprise her. Yet now that we had both experienced something like this, there was no turning back.

"It wasn't too painful, was it?" I asked next, concerned.

Tenshi shook her head, smiling back. "It felt good more than it felt painful."

"That's a relief," I sighed, revealing my own small case of nerves. In games like this, it only remained a game if both sides could enjoy it, and it would lose its flair if one side were to falter.

"Can you stand? The poison should've worn off by now."

"Yes, I think so. I can feel my legs again."

In a single fluid motion, the two of us stood, my hands still on her wrists and behind her back, her hands still on my chest. I could feel that Tenshi was still shaking from her adrenaline rush.

No doubt I was too.

"There can be more of this, if you want it," I offered.

"R-really?"

"Of course. You need only ask, and I will be glad to provide"

"Tonight!" she said quickly as if begging for it. Her hands tightened on my clothes at the same time. "Please! I want you to take me again, to… to whip me more. Please, let us do it again tonight!"

I was a little surprised by her assertiveness; she certainly was hungry for it.

I looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled, brushing aside a lock of her ocean-blue hair. "Perhaps I shall…. If you bring me some rope, I'll consider it."

Her face lit up like a lantern, and she tightly embraced me. "Thank you! You're too kind!"

I patted her head, returning the embrace with my other hand.

Then an idea came to me.

"Ah, and one last thing."

I disengaged myself from the Celestial. My forefingers and thumbs came together, as if pinching something, and drew a line in the air. Between the two points hung a tether of darkness. Like a magician pulling rainbow cloth from his sleeve, I extended it hand-over-hand, forging a string of black from nothing. Once I felt it long enough, I coiled one end twice around my hand, and pressed the other to Tenshi's throat. From there, the darkness expanded, fashioning a black band encircling her neck. A collar, and I held the leash.

"How is it?" I asked, withdrawing my hand. "Is it to your liking?"

Two hands tenderly touched the newly-made restraint.

"It's… a little cold," she whispered, almost inaudible. Then she smiled at me, pleased. "But my neck is warm."

I chuckled a bit. Then raised her chin and pecked her lips. "Only for you, Tenshi."

She giggled. "Thank you… master."

Her arms wrapped around my own, and the two of us began our stroll back to the main house. We were in no rush.

'Master' huh? I could get used to that.

* * *

"I'm rather curious as to how your relation with Tenshi suddenly became so good. The past three days, all she was doing was giving you dirty looks and generally being rude to you."

"Well, they say love and hate are two sides of the same coin."

"That is certainly true. But I heard screams outside, and her clothes were damaged. Did you subject her to some kind of torture?"

"That… is a secret between two, hime-sama."

It was strange that Hanako chose to question my positive relation with Tenshi instead of my reason for being late (though I had a feeling she knew the two were related). But it wasn't totally unprecedented; apparently, she had heard our… activities outside (which meant the rest of the house had probably heard as well), and when the two of us had made it to the main room, where I was supposed to see Hanako, the following exchange had occurred outside.

"Will we… do it again tonight?" she asked, her expression dreamy.

"I said I would consider it." It was half a lie; I was just as impatient for the night to come as she was.

Her hands clasped in front of her as she looked up shyly at me. "Can you promise me?"

A strange twang ran through me at that. Between the collar and her pitiful expression, Tenshi looked incredibly cute.

That just wasn't fair, making a cute face like that.

I sighed, smiling. "If you bring what I asked, then yes."

Her smile came back as well. "Thank you," she said, bowing.

At that, I dispelled the collar, and she turned to leave. I watched her go for a moment before turning back to pull open the door.

Then, the second before I stepped inside, there was a quick pattering of footsteps, and I was hit with a surprise tackle-hug.

Needless to say, the sudden display seemed to interest Hanako.

"Ah this sounds so much like forbidden love~" she cooed, instantly taking the stance of one who was perfectly fine with it, and wanted to nurture such a relationship. "I expect to hear more about this in the future."

"Perhaps," I relented. "But enough of that; what did you call me here for?"

"Ah, yes. Let me ask you something; have you been growing bored these past three days?"

I shook my head. "The cherry blossoms make good company."

"I'm inclined to agree with that," she mused. "Well, in that case, I hope you don't mind being without them for some time; I have a mission for you."

I bowed deeply. "Your wish is my command, hime-sama."

She chuckled. "You're obedient. I like that; you're not like that impudent ice fairy, Cirno. Now…

"These three days of rest have helped me grow reaccustomed to having a physical body once more, and a humanoid one at that. Though I have not quite yet reached full power yet, I am still quite strong in my current, natural state. However, if I amd to conquer the world beyond after finishing with Gensokyo, I will need more.

"At the end of a valley in the land below is a human village. I believe you have visited it once before, am I right?"

I nodded.

"Your task is to have Mystia guide you back to the village, and harvest souls for me to consume. Take as many people with you as you wish, and you will leave tomorrow morning. Is that clear?"

"Yes, hime sama," I accepted immediately. "I shall be swift, and your feast spectacular."

"Good. You are dismissed."

I bowed once more, and made to stand.

"Ah, and one more thing!" she interrupted.

"Yes, hime-sama?" I was halfway up, and I dropped back down.

She gestured with one hand, and I obeyed, shifting closer and leaning in.

"If you happen to find any particularly handsome men," she whispered. "I won't mind if you bring them back alive."

I grinned; how explicit of her. "I will… keep that in mind."

She waved at me, and I swiftly left her audience, considering who I would choose to accompany me.

* * *

The day had been long. A positive point in this case, as many members of the legion were scattered rather sporadically around the main house. It took me most of the day to scout out all the ones I wished to have accompany me.

In the end, only two people were left out of the loop; Parsee and Tenshi. I would have left out Cirno as well, but to my great dismay, she had been nearby when I was explaining the task to Wriggle, the firefly. While her threats weren't particularly frightening, her constant annoyance over the course of nearly an hour afterward proved too much for my patience, and the only way to appease her had been to allow her to come.

As for the other two, I personally did not particularly like Parsee, most likely due to the negative experience I had with her during my visit to Hell. On top of that, her stated power was somewhat disconcerting, as I had little to no use for someone who could only manipulate jealousy, and such a power could prove obstructive should Parsee were to become traitorous (she was easily the most disliked by everyone in the group). So I chose not to invite her. In Tenshi's case….

It seemed to be some kind of strange compulsion, but I felt like I wanted to have someone to come back to. Someone, very literally, on the other side that I could see once my business was finished. It was odd, yet somehow didn't feel out of place.

When I told her this, she seemed disappointed at not being able to come along, but she agreed.

I sighed contentedly, stepping out of the hot spring bath with a satisfied smile. Thankfully, I had been spared the embarrassment of taking a bath with the nine other girls. The previous two days, they had managed to catch me off-guard, and decided to mess with me and force me into the bath with them. Put simply, it wasn't fun. So today, I found a far-off tree to hide in near the entrance of the bath, to make sure that all nine of them had left before I stole away inside on my own.

_I'd better sleep early; it's a long journey to the human village._

The thought was entertaining. I couldn't wait to get to the village come tomorrow. With each second that ticked by, another second had ticked off the clock indicating how much time was left for the humans living there, blissfully unaware of our intentions. They wouldn't see it coming.

They wouldn't even have a chance to mourn their last day.

I allowed the thought to entertain me as I strode through the halls of the main house. Most of the doors were closed, indicating that the other members of the group were either sleeping, or resting in their rooms in preparation for sleep. I had still been surprised by the sheer amount of sleeping space in the house, considering how so few people lived here before our 'moving in'.

That made me wonder what the half-ghost girl Youmu was doing now. She had no idea her mistress was now dead. Breaking the news to her would be rather… enjoyable.

I chuckled at that as I walked through the open door to my room.

And stopped.

What the….

"Um… g-good evening, master."

It was Tenshi.

In a way, I had been somewhat expecting this. Somehow, I'd known that she would come to see me, so suddenly finding her in my room wasn't totally unprecedented. It was more of the fact that she had managed to provide a rather wide array of tools for me to use. Considerably more than I had expected, as there was much more than just rope.

That, and she had presented herself to me kneeling in the middle of the room, within the circle of tools, hands between her legs, completely naked.

I blinked a few times, hardly even trying to keep from staring.

Wow….

"This is rather… forward," I said a bit flatly, my eyes scanning up and down.

Damn…. I'd known that Tenshi was pretty by her own right, but this was a little… too much.

"P-please don't stare too much," she implored, looking away in embarrassment. "I… th-this isn't for you! I just… didn't want to ruin another dress is all!"

"Is that so…."

My bathing supplies had been dropped off near the door, and I pulled the screen shut. When I turned back, my fingers were already making another black string, this one much shorter than the first.

"You must have been cold, waiting like this," I said gently as I pressed the string to her throat. My other arm had gone over her shoulders, and I could feel her body shivering from something that wasn't my touch. "How long were you here?"

"O-only a few minutes," she answered quickly.

"Oh really? But that can't be true," I denied. The collar was finished now, and I was tilting her head over to look at me directly. "If I remember correctly, you were one of the first to leave the bath earlier. To set up something like this in preparation for my return, that means you must have been waiting for over half an hour, at least."

"Sh-shut up!" she exclaimed, having been found out. "Master, you're being mean!"

"Oh, I'm not being mean," I laughed. "I was just figuring out if you were lying to me or not."

At that, I yanked her closer, our lips almost touching. Her gasp of surprise was music to me. My other hand went out to the circle of tools, picking up a smooth wooden ball with leather straps.

"And liars… need to be punished," I whispered.

I kissed her softly. Then reached up, and pushed the ball into her mouth.

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

And suddenly, lemon fic!

Also, screw you schedule slip! I've taken back my writing speed, even if only for a brief moment!

Then again, this chapter is also nearly half as long as some of the ones I've been posting as of late, so that may have something to do with this. However, I wasn't lying about having this all written out already; having time in class means I can just pull out my notebook, and start composing on the spot. What I had in the notebook was essentially this chapter, minus a few parts that I edited and added while writing it into the computer. Definitely a good practice make a habit out of. I'll be doing that a lot more in the future, if only to save time on future writing.

Now then, what else...

I've answered that question that I posed to myself long ago; am I a sadist or a masochist? By this point, it's rather obvious to me that I'm the sadist, as I seem to have a hidden streak for it underneath my usual nice-guy attitude. Psychologically, however, the acts of sadomasochism are supposedly two sides of the same coin, so perhaps I'm still both...

My reason for cutting the chapter there is rather obvious; this is supposed to be rated T. I think I'm already pushing that with the themes I'm implying here, so any more and I might as well shift over to an M rating. But that's not happening, so whoever is disappointed by the lack of explicitness (I'm imagining there's at least a couple people out there who are), just imagine it yourself. I know I certainly can XD

Yes, that does mean that I'm slightly disappointed at not being able to write it out. But there's not much I can really do about that.

Time for another long period of no chapter, because I think this might have been a one time thing~ I hope you enjoyed this chapter~


	40. Chapter 40: Revival and Retreat

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

* * *

**Chapter 40: Revival and Retreat**

"_Would I be correct in assuming you are the one that came in here from the outside world just recently?"_

"_No, stop, you're wrong! I'm not the shadow!"_

"_Or maybe trouble _does_ find you, you disgusting little pervert! Reimu, Marisa, _and_ Nitori?"_

"_Well? Let's get this interview started!" _

"_Please… forgive yourself. And if you can't forgive, then please, forget. I will forgive you either way."_

* * *

"Gah!"

What the… I was awake.

I rubbed my head in discomfort as I tried to even out my breathing. It was that nightmare again. I couldn't believe that I'd been hit with another case of it, making this the fourth time in as many nights. At this rate, I was just going to keep losing sleep over it.

Every night, it always started the same; I would see Hanako, her back turned to me. She'd look over, offering out a hand for a reason I did not know. I would try to take it, but the moment I did, a wall of thorny vines would close over me. And I'd start falling, falling through memory after memory of my time before becoming Hanako's soldier. Voices echoed everywhere, almost until I couldn't tell which was which anymore, until I plunged into an event. Fighting demons in Hell with Utsuho. Meeting the moon princess Kaguya. Making my way up the mountain to meet Kanako. If I had somehow been involved in it, it would show up. It made no difference what it was, and every night was different. And they would often times be twisted somehow. Not necessarily in a negative way, but they would sometimes be contorted, like I was watching the memory through my own eyes, but with the vision smashed in like cracked glass, or occasionally rippling as if I was viewing it with a pool of water, or in some ways I did not care to remember.

Yet at the end of the nightmare, there would always be a single memory that rang with perfect clarity; no distortions, no disturbances, no alterations save for being bathed in some sort of holy light. All of them would be some personal memory with that kappa girl Nitori. Asking her for shelter after my journey to Hell. Falling asleep next to her in Eientei. And just now, I had been given a replay of our conversation inside the waterfall of the Youkai Mountain.

Then, once that finished, I'd be pulled up, back to Hanako and the Saigyou Ayakashi. She would look at me with her empty black eyes without emotion. Her finger would stab me in the head just like before, and I would be shocked awake.

I sighed to myself. I was well aware that having a single dream in a similar fashion multiple nights in a row usually meant something was wrong, or I was being told something. But I had no idea what this dream was supposed to mean.

And for that matter, why did all of these dreams involve that Nitori girl one way or another? As if hitting me with wanging headaches at least once a day wasn't bad enough already….

"Nnh…."

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Tenshi was still here.

Our session the previous night hadn't been very long, but as our first 'official' one, it was certainly a night to remember. Her squeals of pain behind her gag were still fresh on my mind, as were the many marks left behind on her ass gained from a round of whipping and spanking. I took care to end our first session early, refraining form using too many tools in order to save them for the future. Also, our combined overall experience with such activities was still at the level of a pair of greenhorns, so continuing meant running the risk of causing severe physical injury to Tenshi, which I certainly didn't want.

Perhaps in the future, we would engage in these sessions more often, for longer periods of time. Maybe we would even pursue some even more… intimate activities than simple torture. I had made sure not to defile her too much, leaving her womanhood untouched. But one day, Tenshi would truly become mine.

As it was, however, Tenshi had wanted to remain bound and gagged the rest of the night, for reasons I could not quite discern. I had warned her that she would feel sore tomorrow morning, but she shook her head saying she didn't mind. So I left her wrists tied together, and the ballgag in her mouth. I hadn't dispelled the collar either.

She raised her hands with slight difficulty in order to rub her eyes, and sat up a bit, sleepy eyes questioning why I was awake at such an early hour.

I chuckled a little, a reassuring smile coming across my face. I had no intention of giving away any indication that my dream had affected me. "Ah, did I awaken you? Don't worry, it's nothing."

"She didn't seem satisfied with my answer, but she nodded anyways.

But before she could lie back down, I stopped her, and placed a hand down on the pillow, where her head had been. It felt wet.

"Goodness, you drooled a lot tonight," I commented, drawing an embarrassed blush from Tenshi. "Now I have another reason to remove your gag before allowing you to go to sleep."

Before she could make any noise in protest, I reached behind her head, undid the leather strap, and pulled the ball out. As I did, a trail of spit followed, with a couple drops dripping onto the bed.

She winced as her mouth snapped shut, and her hands came up to massage her cheeks.

"I told you so," I teased.

Then I glanced at the ball for a quick moment. I gave it a small lick, tasting the saliva left behind, and feeling the impressions in the wood gained from when Tenshi bit into it last night.

"It tastes of you," I teased, smiling as I breathed in the scent.

"Ah, m-master!" she whined. "Don't say things like tha-mph!"

Her collar did well in keeping her in place as I dove in, pressing my lips onto hers in a deep kiss. She remained tense for only a quick moment before relenting, pushing back as I toyed with her sense of taste. The feel and taste of her tongue were enticing, making me unwilling to part. Back and forth, our tongues rolled across each other, with me taking total control of my partner.

Then, without warning, my hands moved, one going behind her head, the other taking a nipple between its fingers and squeezing.

Tenshi's surprised squeak was lost amongst our mingling tongues. Her hands shot up, fastening themselves to my robe. I didn't stop, testing her sensitivity as I pulled outward. She gasped, drawing me closer and pressing her chest against mine, as if in a futile attempt to stop me.

I pinched harder, and twisted.

"_H-hyaaahh!"_ she squealed at last, breaking free from my lips. It was a cry born of ecstacy through agony.

I smiled, my fingers pulling away. My tongue darted out for an instant to lick up the remaining saliva left behind.

"That was your punishment, naughty little Celestial. I'm not leaving this in for you next time," I said, shaking the leather and ball in front of her.

Alongside her heavy breaths, she looked at me with a pitiful expression, as if thinking it would change my mind.

It didn't work. She eventually nodded. "Yes, master…."

I smiled, and made to get out of the bed. But before I did, I quickly untied the knots binding Tenshi's hands.

"So you're going to the village now?"

"Yeah. I think I may be late as it is. I was supposed to be at the stairwell a little while ago, I think, so I need to get there now." As I spoke, I was disrobing myself, changing back into the outfit that had been originally provided for me by the boundary youkai. Special occasions required special clothing, and this outfit, in all its elegance and beauty, was perfect for that.

"When do you think you'll be back?" she inquired.

I paused in the middle of pulling my arm into the second sleeve of the dress shirt, thinking. "I… can't say. Supposedly, according to Sakuya, it took the three of them a full day to arrive here, so I don't think I'll be back until tomorrow by the earliest."

"Can't you come back sooner?" she whined again.

I laughed as I pulled the slacks over the dress shirt.

"I don't think so. But don't worry."

I finished dressing, pulling the single sleeve of the half-coat over my left arm and securing the belt around my waist. The cravat took some time to tie properly, but I eventually managed the task. I patted the chest pocket on my half-coat, and smiled; the pocket watch was still there. It was a nice memento, in some ways, reminding me that it was a supposed gift.

Once I was done, I went back over to the still-bedridden Celestial and knelt before her, taking her hand in my own.

"I shall be swift in my return for you. Be still; you will not be alone for long."

A pause. Then Tenshi slipped off the bed and hugged me. "I will hold that to you, Kaito."

"You have my word."

* * *

"Hey, what took ya so long! We've been waitin' forever for ya!"

"My apologies. I seem to have overslept."

"Sou nano ka~? But how could you sleep with all that noise last night?"

I winced a bit. That… was difficult to answer. I had no intention of indulging Rumia in my late night activities, yet at the same time, it felt somewhat rude to just leave her hanging.

"Oh isn't it obvious?" Medicine cut in, smirking coldly at me. "Human ears are terrible, after all. It's no surprise he was able to sleep through that."

_I'm not sure if I like that answer_ I thought, though it did manage to get me out of having to answer the darkness youkai. However, my polite smile betrayed no anger.

"Ah, who cares!" Cirno, the ice fairy, blurted out loudly. "We wasted so much time waitin' for him! I said it'd be alright to go on without him."

"But it's my job to escort him," Mystia countered, coming out from behind my back. "You're all just coming along with him."

"Well why does he get ta be leader? I'm the strongest! I should be tha leader!"

"What are you talking about?" sniped Wriggle Nightbug. "You think you're the strongest? Please. That couldn't be further from th-"

BONK!"

"Shaddup, Wriggle!"

"Now now, let's not get violent here," Yamame Kurodani intervened, the earth spider attempting to come between the ice-blockhead and the firefly. She wasn't doing a very good job.

"We really need to get go-"

"You ice-for-brains! Get over he-"

"QUIET!"

**BOOM!**

The localized miniature earthquake was more than enough to shut them all the hell up.

I frowned at the lot of them, the Sword of Hisou stabbed into the ground, cracks spiderwebbing out from it. Gods, could these people not get along at all?

"Now that I have your attention…" I breathed, attempting to exhale out my spike of anger.

"Cirno, get it into your thick head! I had no intention of ever asking you, and only let you come along because you wouldn't leave me alone about it. Be grateful I ever agreed to bring you in the first place!"

"Ha!" Wriggle cried in victory. In a singsong voice, she continued "He chose me ove-"

"Wriggle!"

"Eep!"

My glare had jumped a level in intensity. This was really beginning to irritate me.

"I don't give a damn about how much you don't like Cirno. She's coming along, and that's that. So put up, and shut up, before I send you back to Hanako-hime!"

The idiot pair stared at me, silent. Then they glanced at each other, huffed, and turned towards opposite directions like a couple of kids in a cartoon show. I knew it wasn't permanent, but at least it was a temporary solution. I was the current leader, and they knew it. On top of that, I was stronger than both of them by a fair margin, and I had no qualms about knocking them inside out if situation called for it. So they either shut up, or I smacked them both silly. Their choice.

Not that it mattered, considering how stupid they were.

"Uwah~" Rumia sighed in amazement. "Kaito-nii is so cool~"

I grimaced mentally; that elder-brother attachment wasn't really necessary….

"Don't encourage him, or he'll freeze solid," Medicine quipped, seemingly unamused. But I could tell she was slightly impressed; Wriggle and cirno did little more than argue with each other on a day-to-day basis when they weren't trying to fight everyone else or each other in doomed-to-fail attempts in making themselves look stronger. The others were mostly fine – or rather, amused – with just watching them have at each other, and perhaps enjoyed kicking them down a few pegs if they were challenged. So far, I'd been the only one who could reign the little rabble rousers in, much to Yamame's relief, since she and I shared sentiments on trying to keep the two from blowing themselves up but was just a little too soft to get in the way of either of them.

"Now that that's taken care of…" Mystia breathed, wiping her forehead of nonexistent sweat. "Let's get going, hm?"

"Yes," I agreed, withdrawing the Sword of Hisou. "We have a lot of ground to cover."

"I'll lead us there!"

"No, I will!"

"You'll just get us lost!"

"Nuh-uh! You will! I'll-"

CRACK!

"OW!"

"Shut up, you two!"

The idiot pair grumbled loudly as they split up, rubbing their heads in pain. Cirno, in particular, would feel it later, since I had whacked her with a hammer as opposed to Wriggle being hit with a fist.

But she was an idiot. She'd be fine.

"It really is difficult, isn't it?"

I groaned, shaking my head. My own fault for taking Yamame's job in trying to control those two. But at least she understood.

"Oh yeah. It really is…"

* * *

"The village is really here, you have to believe me!"

"I know, I believe you, okay? So quit bawling already. But still, that doesn't explain this at all…."

The trip really had taken the whole day. On the way, we had passed quite a few things: a village named Mayohiga that served as a home for youkai; a large lake independent of the one that surrounded the Scarlet Devil Mansion; and a massive section of the Forest of Magic. Of the seven of us, Yamame was the only one who had no method of flight, indirect or otherwise, so I was left with the task of having to piggyback-carry her, being the largest of the group. Nothing really happened aside from a couple more argumentative break-outs from the usual two. At one point, I really wanted to shut the two up, except my hands were full. At this, Yamame was more than glad to help with several sharply-aimed shots of sticky spider silk, effectively shutting them both up for three whole hours. Unfortunately for both of them, this fell right on top of noontime, when we stopped for lunch (I didn't intentionally do this, to be honest), so the two of them were left hungry until they were able to work off the silk and ask us to stop a second time.

We spoke little, preferring to just fly in order to make the best of the time we were given. Admittedly, however, it was rather amusing, watching Rumia float into a tree on occasion. Why she concealed herself in such a thick bubble of darkness all the time, I would never know, since she couldn't see out of it at all, but it also served as a rather nice shield from the sun, so none of us really said anything.

Now we were at the end of the valley. We were ready to take what we had come for.

But the village wasn't here.

The seven of us were standing the middle of the exact spot where the village was supposed to be, yet there wasn't a single building or house in sight. The ground was perfectly fresh with green grass growing with impunity. It was like the entire village had simply chosen to suddenly pick itself up and vanish into thin air, leaving nothing but grass, a few trees, and fresh air.

Normally, I most likely would have said that Mystia was somehow mistaken. But that wasn't the case; aside from having been here once before, I could just _tell_ something was here. Some kind of energy signature was left behind, indicating that the village was indeed here; it was just that something was concealing it.

"What I'd like to know," Medicine questioned, "is who would have enough power to hide the whole village."

I would have suggested Yukari at that, but decided it to be too obvious. Besides, if that really were the case, then I doubt I would be feeling this energy.

"It's gotta be that schoolteacher," Wriggle claimed. "She's the one guarding the village all the time, after all."

"Who?" I asked as Mystia nodded in agreement.

"She's this half-human that guards the village against fairies and youkai," Cirno explained simply.

"That is to say, I guard it from the likes of you."

The sudden inclusion of a loud, motherly voice turned us towards the direction from which we came.

Out from the trees strode a beautiful, sky-blue-haired woman perhaps no older in looks than Hanako herself. Her simple blue dress with the red ribbon at the end of the collar was, admittedly, fitting for a schoolteacher, despite it looking rather low-cut. But the strangest part of her outfit was her hat, which looked like some kind of pagoda or bento box sitting on top of her head. In short, it looked foolish.

"Ah, so you're the self-proclaimed guardian of the village," I greeted, stepping forward and bowing. "May I ask your name?"

"Keine Kamishirasawa," she responded, bowing with the same polite front I was putting up. We were enemies; courtesy was an unneeded formality. "What is yours?"

"Kaito. I am an envoy of the new mistress of Hakugyokoro, Hanako-hime. Pray tell, how did you manage to hide the entire human village like this?"

" 'Humans never settled here in the first place.' All I did was make it look that way," she answered. "Good thing I did, too, with so many suspicious characters appearing out of the night."

I made a mental note to next time tell Rumia to blacken any area we were about to investigate so moonlight would not reach us; with the moon only just waning, there was still plenty enough to see perfectly fine at night even if you were human.

"So you knew we were coming then?" I asked, somewhat amused. "I wonder who told you."

"A little bird did."

At that, I had an aching feeling that at least two of the others were staring at Mystia, angry. How nice; now dissent would be sowed within the ranks.

"Hmph," I scoffed. "It matters little. Though I wonder if the village won't show its face…."

I drew the Sword of Hisou and assumed a ready stance: dominant foot forward, weapon held angled towards the ground in front of me, palm facing downward.

"Once I defeat you."

Keine eyed the sword with some form of apprehension. "I thought that was the sword used by that Celestial."

"It is," I confirmed. "But Tenshi's not here right now, so I'm using it in her stead."

She didn't comment. Instead, she pulled out a card from her dress.

"_宝刀は、王のすべての敵をダウンカットしなければならない! __Land Sign: Three Sacred Treasures – Sword!"_

She tossed the card above her. It shattered there, and reconstructed into the form of a glowing white sword. Once it came down into her open hand, it assumed the plain steel gray of a katana with an ornately designed hilt and red-white handle.

"Haven't used this in a while," she mused, taking a couple practice swings. Then she took a ready stance of her own: left foot forward, katana held two hands above her head and parallel to the floor.

"Good thing I can still remember how."

I smiled gleefully. "It would have been a shame if you had forgotten."

With the sword, I drew a quick circle above my head. "Circle up!"

The other six fanned out at my command, forming a small hexagonal arena around the two of us. This was one battle Keine wasn't going to get out of, even if she won.

"Now…." My face became murderous. "Show me your strength!"

I lunged, stepping into a shoulder-to-hip cross slash. The two swords clashed loudly, my weapon skating down the length of the other. I turned the momentum back inward, aiming to take a swipe at her side.

A loud clang resounded around. Keine shoved my blade out of the way before taking a wide swing at my head. I blocked, deflecting the swing and sending it above me. With a flourish and spin, Keine brought the katana up and dropped it into a crushing overhand.

KRANG!

A shock coursed through my arm as I blocked it. Geez, I'd underestimated her strength.

With some effort, I forced the blade to the side, allowing the schoolteacher's excessive weight on the katana drop her to the ground in surprise. My back foot lashed out, kicking her away before backing up a short distance. I gestured with one hand, bading her to come at me.

She was more than happy to oblige.

The battle steadily grew more intense as Keine's attacks gained ground, pushing me back around the mini-arena as she sought to dominate the battle with large power blows. Her style was like that of a berserker, largely emphasizing wide, powerful swings with the intent of knocking my guard out entirely, and batting aside my attacks with similarly large swings in order to create an opening. While they were easy to anticipate, my guards were proving insufficient, requiring me to parry or dodge them instead. My movements, by contrast, were those of a fencer, preferring the more fluid movements of grace and precision as I attempted to strike past her guard after finding a lapse in her defense. But my strikes proved useless, as she always brought her sword around fast enough to block.

The two of us tired equally fast after several fevered minutes of clashing blades. Parrying Keine's blows proved highly taxing, while her large plethora of of attacks was leaving her exhausted. Twice, she managed to smash me with the hilt of her katana, and once headbutted me in the torso. The Sword of Hisou managed to lick her cheek once, while the flat side rapped against her shin and arm once each.

I knew that, in theory, that I could use the multi-weapon function of the Sword of Hisou to gain unparalleled superiority over my opponent. But the sword form was my most comfortable stance, and I ahd no training in any other weapon. With no training, such a function would only prove to be a hindrance instead of an advantage. That aside, Keine's endless flurry of attacks flowed evenely from one to the other, only faltering if I managed to properly parry and strike back, giving me no opportunity to change anyhow.

I knocked aside a stab for my heart and attempted an underhand swing. Keine swept my blade aside yet again, bringing the katana up and around into another overhand blow, which she seemed incredibly fond of. In the nick of time, I managed to block, though my arm nearly crumpled, fatigue threatening to let the katana blade meet my head.

_Damnit, I need to finish this!_

"Grr…" she growled at me, pressing down on me with even greater force. "Give it up already. No matter how hard you fight, I'll defend this village to my last breath!"

"Ha!" I scoffed. "Then I'll gladly grant that wish for you!"

With all the strength I could manage at that moment, I gave a mighty shove, sending Keine's katana skyward. Before she could react, I stepped forward, ramming my shoulder into her chest.

_I'm not gonna end here!_

I had dropped the Sword of Hisou. My now-free hand swung upward, crashing into Keine's chin.

Her katana clattered to the ground as he flew and tumbled a few feet.

_And I'm not gonna lose!_

From my pocket, I drew a card.

The first three I had obtained before becoming Hanako's soldier were grayed out, unable to be activated. I could understand why; those I called 'friends' before no longer fit that category, and so I could no longer use their abilities for myself. I still kept the cards with me, though for no particular reason, but I was lucky enough to gain an entirely different card in exchange.

My sadist smile was back, as the shattered card began to fill me with power. _"Quod immane in sepulchro misericordiam dormi glaciem! Frozen Hell: Frigid Coffin!"_

I waved my hand once, and icy black-blue winds began whirling, buffeting the schoolteacher in a raging blizzard. With a howl, echoed by the winds as well as my own throat, they began channeling upward to a place high above my head, coalescing into a massive projectile of black ice.

"Die!"

My hands swept. And the frozen torpedo came down.

KRRSHH!

The ice vanished the moment it shattered, leaving behind a body far more damaged.

I picked back up the Sword of Hisou, and it vanished with a wave of my hand. Then I began rubbing the part of my arm where she had hit me with her katana handle once before.

"Looks like this is my win."

But the village still had not returned. How odd.

I strode over to the unmoving Keine, and discovered that she was still concscious. Her eyes were barely open, and she was breathing incredibly hard despite the missile of ice I had dropped into her, but she wasn't out cold yet.

The other six gathered as well.

"What do we do with her?" Yamame asked. Her expression grew dark. "Should I infect her with something nice?"

"No!" Cirno butt in. "Let me freeze her solid!"

"Quiet!" I boomed. "Don't do anything… yet. Stand her up."

Mystia and Wriggle obeyed, lifting Keine up by the arms and holding her so she knelt before me.

"So…" I said softly, leaning over her. "You will yield?"

Her face was still contorted in pain, but her lips twisted upward, baring her teeth in defiance.

"You shall not pass! Mokou!"

My eyes widened.

"Scatter!"

We split.

FWASHOOM!

When I turned back, I no longer saw Keine, instead staring into a ring of flames, a blazing firestorm surrounding her and a small area around.

That blasted bird!

"You!" I called out into the sky.

From above descended an angel incarnate, upon wings of flame. Her aura burned a fiery red-orange, with a single matchfire resting in her palm.

Her red eyes no longer held the warmth of a fireplace like the last time I saw them; they were glowing like freshly-lit coals, and they were glaring at me.

"You beg me for help, and this is how you repay me!" she accused.

My face registered shock.

That night….

"I…."

_Ba-bump!_

"Gah!"

"_Please… help…."_

The wings… the ruby….

_No, stop! You can't hurt anyone anymore!_

"Ngh, shut up!" I shouted out loud, clutching my head as the voice echoed around.

Damn it, what was happening? That voice… it sounded like me.

But I was Hanako's soldier, wholly and completely. That other side of me didn't exist!

I shook my head, one hand still held over an eye, and looked up at Mokou with a small smile. "I'm sorry, but the boy you met that night is no longer here."

Her eyes were wide with surprise for a moment. Then they narrowed in anger once more. "In that case…."

She dropped onto the floor with a resounding thud. From her pocket, she a card came out.

"_地獄の炎、火のケージに鉱山の敵を火葬! __Incarceration: Infernal Prison!"_

Her open hand smashed the ground, white energy streaming into the grass.

At my feet, a humongous orange magic glyph appeared.

_Shit!_

FWOOM!

On instinct, I had taken flight, and none too soon; the moment I got more than a few feet above the ground, four pillars of fire ignited sucessively, all facing in towards the center of the glyph where I had been standing.

I floated there a couple feet above the fire with a strange reverence, feeling the heat beneath my feet. That card had nearly incinerated me!

BOOM!

"Argh!"

I nearly fell straight to the ground, but I caught myself before falling too far. Where the hell had that explosion come from?

"Uwooah!"

_Crap!_

CRACK!

I was thrown, my chin burning from the fiery uppercut I was just dealt. It took a second efore I could stop in midair properly.

I rubbed my chin a quick second, annoyed. Then I pounded my fists together. In a flash of light, I pulled them apart. My hands were coated in ice, with jagged spikes jutting out from where my knuckles were.

Mokou was a Hourai immortal, right? So this should be no problem for her.

"Come at me!" I challenged, flexing my frozen gauntlets to test them.

Mokou yelled in anger, flying at me with flame-charged fists.

"No way!"

The sudden appearance of a flying foot surprised both me and Mokou as it kicked the latter in the side and out of the way.

"I have a bone to pick with you!" Wriggle declared, the light under her wings burning brightly. I'd never seen it that bright before, but then I realized that a stream of card fragments was flowing into her hand. "That forest fire you started killed many of my siblings. You're going to pay for them with your life! _発光の昆虫は、私の敵を壊滅させるために一緒に集まる! __Lamp Sign: Firefly Phenomenon!"_

She raised a hand, fist clenced. Almost at once, tiny black bugs with lit backs all began to gather above her hand, merging together into a single entity of light and heat. There must have been hundreds of them, the hive mind beneath them drawing them all into one place.

"Eat this!"

The hand of judgement swung down, pointing at the recovering phoenix.

The ball of light exploded, a focused beam of white light shooting out at Mokou.

"Don't get so cocky, insect!"

A single wing of fire swept in, absorbing the heat laser as a lake accepted a river.

In a moment, the laser died away, leaving an unharmed phoenix behind.

"Tch, you thought such a weak attack could harm me?" she mocked. "How stupid!"

Wriggle cried out, furious that her target remained standing. With reckless abandon, she attacked.

"Hey, leave some for me!"

From behind me came Cirno, ice greatsword in hand, charging after the heels of the firefly.

I watched them go. I didn't think they would be able to do very much, but this proved something; they hated each other, but despite that, they had no problem fighting alongside each other. It was like they were a weird pair of rivals of some kind.

But that didn't matter; I would leave Mokou to them. I have some other business to take care of.

I began dropping back towards ground level. As I did, I saw Mystia flying up to join the other two, and Rumia following closely behind. It seemed fitting that such a group fought together. Really, what a crew. It was no wonder Yamame had so much trouble with them.

As I descended, I angled toward the ring of fire, towards the immobile body of Keine. It was surprising to see that the fire had not spread one bit in the middle of such a grassy field, but that wasn't my concern.

Instead, I was concerned with the fact that there was another person inside the ring now. And I was pretty sure it wasn't Yamame or Medicine.

"Kaito!"

"Wait there!" I commanded Yamame. "I'll take care of this."

I landed a short ways away from the body of the schoolteacher, watching as a young child shook her. I couldn't tell if Keine was conscious anymore, but considering how the village still wasn't back yet, I could only assume that she was, though only barely hanging on. The child's voice – female – seemed to be getting a reaction, however.

It was a very familiar voice as well.

"Keine-sensei! Keine-sensei!"

Who was this child?

"Ngh…."

The half-human guardian attempted to lift her head. What a strong force of will she had.

"Sensei!"

The brown eyes of ths schoolteacher could barely comprehend the child at her side.

"Sat… suki…?"

Satsuki? That was… ah, yes, she was the child of the village that I had met.

But what was she doing here?

"Keine-sensei! Are you hurt? What's going on, why is there fire everywhere?"

"You… have to run…" she gasped. "You cannot stay…."

"I'm afraid she can't run, Keine-san."

Black hair and a set of frightened brown eyes snapped back.

"Onii-san!"

"Hello, Satsuki-chan," I greeted, a false smile playing on my lips as I walked over.

"Oh no…" Keine breathed, just barely loud enough for me to hear. Her head dropped back down.

"Onii-san, help!" she pleaded, grabbing my clothes once I was close enough and tugging on them. "Keine-sensei's hurt. You have to help her!"

"I know…" I said softly, barely above the roar of the fire.

_Ba-bump!_

"Ach!" My knees buckled slightly. What the… that feeling again….

"Onii-san!"

I shook my head. Then I smiled, kneeling on the ground next to the young girl. "I remember something; I never told you my name did I?"

"No…."

"Well, I'm going to tell you now," I said, placing my hand on her head. "My name's Kaito. And I'm going to help your teacher, okay?"

It was a perfect half-lie, and my smiling face betrayed nothing.

The Sword of Hisou was drawn now, and I had it pointed at the back of Keine's head.

"O-onii-san, what are you doing!"

"I'm helping her," I answered coldly. "That's what you wanted, right?"

"This isn't helping! You need to get her somewhere safe!"

"I know…. This will send her somewhere better than here…."

I raised the sword, prepared to strike.

"Onii-san, stop!" she begged, pulling on my coat. "You're going t-ghk!"

Her sentence was cut short once my hand left her head and began restricting her airway.

"Don't worry," I assured, slowly tightening my grip as my smile began to lose its fake warmth, melting back into my sadist smile. "You'll be joining her soon…."

"Onii… san…" she gasped, small hands attempting to pry apart my fingers as tears of agony streamed freely down her face. "S… stop….

"You… promised!"

_Ba-bump!_

I gasped.

Wha….

I… promised her…?

_Ba-bump!_

"Argh!

* * *

"_But if you've been a bad little girl, then I just might become a youkai, and _eat you_!" _

"_Eek!"_

"_Hahaha, I'm just kidding. Even if I was a youkai, I wouldn't eat you."_

"_You wouldn't."_

"_Yeah, I wouldn't. Promise. What's your name?"_

"_I'm Satsuki, onii-san."_

"_Satsuki, huh? That's a cute name. Well, Satsuki, if I were ever to become a youkai, I promise I won't eat you."_

"_Thank you, onii-san!"_

* * *

I've… turned into a youkai…?

No! I was still human! That didn't-

_Ba-bump!_

"Gyah!"

_Stop it! You've practically become one. You were trying to feed her soul to an evil ayakashi. You're not supposed to hurt her!_

"Grr… shut up!" I shouted, dropping to my knees. "Get out of my head!"

_No! I won't let you hurt anyone anymore!_

"Ngh…." Goddamnit… the pounding won't stop… I can't….

"Stop it… stop it!"

"O-onii-sa-"

"_Stay back!"_ I screamed, my arm knocking her away before returning to my head.

_I'm the one in control. You need to get out of here, now!_

_No! This is my body, so _you_ get out!_

_You are loyal to Hanako-hime, you bastard. Obey me!_

_No… you're wrong. _You_ are loyal to her. Not me._

_So…._

KRRSH!

The sound of one's head snapping.

I opened my eyes wide to the hammer smashing against my skull, staring at the floor.

My teeth clenched. It was time to remove this curse.

Passcode: Evolve or die.

"Get… _out… OF… __**ME!"**_

BWASHOOM!

Power burst through my body, finally erasing the side of me that I wanted dead for four days. A beacon of blue light speared into the sky, finally signifying the death throes of my inner enemy as my surge of spiritual power found a way out of my body.

Finally, the energy died away.

I was… free.

I stared up into the sky, unbelieving.

"Onii… san?"

That voice….

My head dropped, exhausted, looking down at the small child in front of me. Her eyes were wide as she stared.

"Satsuki… chan…."

The fire continued to blaze, but it might as well have not been there, for all it mattered. Everything felt silent.

And I embraced her tightly.

"Satuski-chan, I'm so sorry!"

I was all over….

My god, what had I done…?

"Onii-san…."

Her arms came back to return the hug.

"You kept your promise."

I was already crying, but at that, the tears began flowing freely.

But now wasn't the time for crying.

I took back control, remembering that we were still in the middle of the battlefield, and I had to get Satsuki somewhere safe.

And Keine too. Gods, how was I ever going to ask her and Mokou for forgiveness?

"Okay…" I breathed, releasing her. "I'm going to get you and Keine-san out of here, Satsuki-chan. Stay by her."

I pushed the young girl over to Keine. She looked at me with astonished eyes. "But what're you-"

"I may be human," I explained, cutting off her inevitable question. "But I can do many things humans can't do."

I closed my eyes in concentration, silently thanking the fates for allowing Patchouli to teach this to me.

With a flourish, I jumped, white wind billowing out as I spun in the air. In a single wave, the ring of fire was almost completely blown out, leaving nothing behind but a patch of burned grass and very fertile ground to represent it had ever been there.

As I landed, I quickly glanced around the area now devoid of any form of fire. Yamame and Medicine were still there, while a short distance away was the body of a burned-out Wriggle.

Seemed like Mokou was doing fine.

"Kaito, how did you do that?" Yamame called out, rushing over. "And the village still isn't back yet. Why?

I was looking down, not showing that my eyes were no longer red.

"I'm sorry…."

Once she was close enough, my palm lashed out, hitting the earth spider square in the stomach. The blue energy made a satisfying explosion, further cementing that I was back in control.

"But I'm not killing anyone today!"

My foot came flipped up, kicking Yamame in the chin with a leg wrapped in yellow-orange energy, just like how Reimu showed me so long ago.

She went flying as my kick came full circle and I touched back onto the floor. My head was spinning a little; I wasn't used to doing flips with that. I was going to need aerial training later.

"What the hell?" Medicine cried in shock. Her eyes flashed with anger. "You would turn on us?"

"I would?" I questioned coldy, almost feigning ignorance. "Sorry, but that side of me no longer exists."

Her teeth were bared, and she began excreting large clouds of poisong. She whipped them together into a salvo of condensed poison bullets the size of fists.

"Die, traitor!"

The moment she did that, the bullets fired. But I already had my card out, at the ready.

Utsuho, don't fail me now!

"_Sol Deus, da mihi praesidium momento! Explosion: Blast Barrier!"_

The card melted into my hands, and I thrust them forward in a protective stance.

A large kite shield at least my size, constructed as if from the hexagonal honeycombs of a beehive, burst to life. The poison bullets struck the shield and dissipated harmlessly against it, consumed by nuclear energy.

The instant that happened, the hexagons broke apart, then reassembled into a stacked deck in front of me. I stepped back, and kicked it once.

The entire deck blasted outward, scattering over a wide conic area in front of me. With such a wide spray, only one of the deadly energy blades managed to hit Medicine, cutting into her upper arm. But it was enough; she was momentarily stunned.

I was breathing hard; expending so much energy in order to regain control of my body had left me with little to work with. But that didn't matter; I had to keep going. Yamame wasn't quite down for the count yet, and she was still recovering, and Medicine could still very easily bog me down with poisons of her choosing. I needed to get out fast.

I turned back around, ready to run back to Satsuki.

KRAKOOM!

I shielded my eyes.

Where the hell had that lightning bolt come from? I thought the sky was cloudless!

I pulled my hands away.

As if descending from the heavens themselves, a woman came down to touch the ground. The most prominent feature about her – barring the fact that her physical figure was rather beautiful – was the long pink scarf with red frills wrapped around her arms, suspended in the air behind her head much like Shou's white cloth. Next was her blouse of similar color and design as her scarf, a long black skirt, and a black hat with a red bow and two long ribbons extending up and out like the antennae of a fish.

"Atmosphere: unsteady," she said, supposedly to no one in particular since her eyes were closed, but she seemed to be looking right at me. "Feelings: regret, doubt, but also with a strange protective instinct resting underneath it."

Her eyes opened to reveal a pair of irises colored a deep scarlet, and they examnined me gently. "You have changed. Before, you were surrounded with a cloud of malevolence and destructive intent. When I saw the bolt of energy strike the sky, I knew something had become different. I cannot fathom how you managed such a sudden change in so short a time, but it is a welcome one."

I blinked. "Who are you?"

"I am Iku of the Nagae clan, messenger of the Dragon Palace. I came out in search of the Eldest Daughter, who went missing many days ago, and thought that she may be here, as the atmosphere said she would be. Pray tell, why do you wield the weapon of the Eldest Daughter?"

"I do…?" Wait, did that mean….

"Yes. You are wielding the Sword of Hisou, the weapon of Tenshi of the Hinanai family, are you not? Yet she is not here. "Why is that?"

I didn't answer, unsure of how. Really, how was I supposed to explain to her that the one she was looking for had been taken control of by an evil ayakashi? "Um… I…."

Suddenly, Iku's eyes widened. "Watch out!"

In two swift motions, the scarf around her arms snapped to life, whipping out, wrapping itself around me, and pulling me in.

"Wah!"

Once the scarf uncoiled itself from around my waist, she repeated the same movements. This time, she aimed behind her, catching both Satsuki and Keine in one go and bringing them back the same way. The moment she finished, she produced a card from her blouse, and stepped past me.

"_雷の__グランドドラゴンは、あなたの壁の中で私をシールドする! __Lightning Sign: Elekiter Dragon Palace!"_

She spun once, and ended with one hand on her hip, the other thrust towards the sky, pointing up.

KRAKOOM!

A humongous bolt of lightning dropped from empy space, intending to strike the point exactly where Iku was. But before it did, a couple meters above her extended finger, the bolt split apart, encasing the four of us in a massive cage of blue lightning, impassible by anything solid that was much larger than a human head.

BZZZZZT!

"Gyaaaah!"

A well-roasted Mystia dropped off the shield like a moth that had unwittingly touched a blazing fire.

I stared at Iku with gratitude in my eyes; she had just saved me from being gored open by a diving night sparrow.

"I can only hold this spell for so long!" Iku shouted at me. "Take those two and flee from this place. We will meet up at a later date, when conditions in the atmosphere are more favorable."

I quickly nodded. "We need to hold them off for a quick moment. Mokou has to take Keine; I can't take both of them with me at once."

She nodded back. "It shall be as you say."

No sooner did she say that when the barrier of lightning began to dissipate. Just a second before it did, Iku dropped her stance, brought her hands together in front of her, and pushed out. Two orbs of lightning shot out of her hands, with a long bar of electricity racing between them as they spun clockwise, making their way towards the pair.

It was simple enough to dodge; both Yamame and Medicine simply dove to the side.

Then Iku spun, reassuming the same stance she had taken when casting her spell card.

A visible line of static charge appeared at Medicine's location.

KRAKOOM!

She barely managed to dodge in time, but that left her open to me as I blasted her with a volley of water. The bullets struck home, knocking her away a short distance.

Then another boom cracked the sky as another lightning bolt struck near Yamame.

At that, once the bolt disappeared into the air, a flash of white light burst out in front of me.

_Whoa!_

Everything seemed to stand still for a few seconds as the light continued to burn. Once it receded, I took away my hands to see what had caused the sudden flash.

Two new cards floated there, still glowing white hot from their sudden appearance.

"Wow…" I breathed.

Two cards? Today was my lucky day.

I swiped them out of the air, and quickly pocketed one of them. Now was as good a time as ever to use a new card.

"You truly are no ordinary human," Iku said in slight awe. "What are you?"

I smiled to myself slightly as I read the name of the card.

"An idiot with power, I'd say."

I dove over, snatching up the Sword of Hisou; I had a feeling I'd need it.

The hand with a card punched the air as I called out the spell.

"_Benedicite, spiritus tonitrui augere mucrone delere me adversarius meus! Energy Sign: Electro Blitz!"_

The card flashed white once more, and shot down into my hand like a bolt of lightning, striking through my body as if to zap my very soul. A shock ran through my arm, and the Sword of Hisou ignited with static charge, sparks of blue voltage jumping around on it.

I knelt for a second, assuming the stance of a runner ready to begin sprinting. Power was building up within me.

Unconsciously, I smiled.

"Start!"

BOOM!

My feet moved almost as if possessed, charging at Medicine with reckless abandon. My legs pedaled almost as fast as a racehorse, as if they were supercharged with electricity and I was being further boosted by a burst of Aya's wind.

The distance between us was covered in seconds.

"You ready for this!" I cried.

In a single swift motion, I dashed past Medicine, swinging the Sword of Hisou once.

KRRZZZT!

"Agh!"

I hadn't even felt the sword pass through her, but I could tell that Medicine's body was being assaulted by a wave of static shock.

Yet the spell card wasn't done. My legs continued to stamp the ground as I made a U-turn and kicked Medicine into the air.

"Take a nap, Medicine!"

I jumped after her, isolating her in a single location as I raced by a total of five more times, slashing her with each pass.

With my final pass, I whispered "Night night."

I touched back down just as Medicine hit the floor, her doll-like body jerking erratically from the immense discharge of electricity that I had unleashed upon her.

Whoa… that had felt _awesome!_

I turned back towards Yamame with a smile. To hell with running away; we could finish this here and now if we wanted to!

"Tell your master that we're coming for her," I commanded, pointing the sword at the earth spider. "And this time, we're going to win."

Yamame didn't move for a moment, stunned by the sudden display of power.

"Waaaa-augh!"

A falling blue comet smashed the floor with great force, bouncing once before coming to a stop.

"Cirno-chan!"

Down from the sky came Rumia, concerned for her friend.

"That takes care of you, you damn ice fairy!"

To my right, Mokou touched down, cradling her right arm. Her clothes indicated that she'd been in one hell of a fight, with quite a few tears all along her pants and shirt, and a couple of the charms she usually had in her hair were notably absent.

"I don't know how or why you changed so quickly," Mokou directed at me as bluntly as possible. "But if we take care of these last three, and Keine gets out of this alive, you can consider your debt repaid."

My eyes widened, and I nodded enthusiastically. "Thank you, Mokou-sama."

"Tch, where did that come from?" she questioned, apparently rejecting my formal address of her. "Just be glad I'm not killing you on the spot."

I smiled weakly. Either way, I was happy.

Then, something crossed my mind, and my skin began to crawl.

SHHRK!

That didn't sound pleasant….

My head snapped back over to the three soldiers that were still conscious, along with one that was unconscious.

What I saw wasn't good.

Four tendrils of darkness had spawned from the ground behind them, and were stabbed into the backs of each one. Their heads were down, as if caught in a trance, but all three were standing almost completely straight up. Medicine had risen back up as well.

I looked over, and saw the exact same happening with the last two.

Oh hell no.

"Run!"

I began a mad dash back to where Keine and Satsuki were, trying to get between them and Mystia before the latter did something horrible to them. Iku and Mokou, while confused, soon followed

None of the six moved as the three of us made our way over. The moment we made it, we formed a protective shield in front of them; my sword was raised, Iku's scarf was ready, and Mokou had fire in both hands.

"Onii-san, what's wrong?"

I didn't look at Satsuki, my eyes still on the six. "Something bad…."

As one, the group began to move, lining up a short distance away. Rumia stepped forward, and raised her head to us.

Her bloody red eyes were glowing slightly, but her face was neutral. The voice she spoke with was not her own.

"_So… you would betray me?"_

It was Hanako; she was using Rumia as her medium.

I grimaced. "I never wanted to be a part of your legion in the first place."

"_Is that so…? Well then, a soldier that refuses to remain loyal is useless to me. I'm afraid bringing you back is no longer possible._

"_The only punishment left is death."_

The black tendril began to undulate, as if pumping something up from the ground. The exact same happened with every other tendril, and whatever was being injected slipped into their bodies silently, without trouble.

Oh boy….

Rumia's smile stretched to an impossible length. _"Slowly, and painfully, you shall be one with me again, whether you want to or not!"_

At that, her head dropped again, the link severed.

_FWOOM!_

All their auras flared out, signifying a surge of power filling them up. The air was filled with multiple smells all at once, making me feel like fainting.

And all of them began to change. In nightmarish ways I wouldn't have thought possible.

Rumia wrapped herself in a cocoon of darkness, and emerged completely jet black from head to toe, as if coated in a suit of armor. The only part of her that didn't transform was the red gem-ribbon on her forehead, which seemed to intensify in glow. From one hand grew a long black sword of pure darkness.

Wriggle's cape-like wing cover split in half, become a set of jagged wings like those of a bat. Her antennae extended outward, growing a couple inches in length. When she looked back up, her eyes had become compound, like those of an insect except with a teal glow.

Mystia sprouted an extra set of wing-like ears from her head, and her wings nearly doubled in size, becoming almost as big as Mokou's own fire wings. Her long nails extended as well, becoming twice as deadly as before. Her legs from the knee down suddenly became bird-like, talons ripping out of her shoes.

Cirno's seraphim-styled wings burst out, becoming at least the same size as the person itself. The two joined together above her head, forming an icy halo. At the same time, she almost seemed to age a little, growing in height as her hands and feet became wrapped in icy armaments shaped like dragon claws.

Six spindly spider legs sprouted from Yamame's torso, planting themselves firmly into the ground and lifting her up. The poofy underside of her dress seemd to cinch together, becoming the actual abdomen of a spider. Her arms reshape themselves into spider legs as well, barbed tips ready to impale the nearest prey.

With a shudder, Medicine dropped to the ground with a clatter, as if having lost all form of automation. Then, her doll companion suddenly materialized a control bar and floated above her, five strings taking hold of her head and each of her four limbs. Her head looked up, her face paled and eyes devoid of life.

Oh crap.

"_Don't worry,"_ Rumia said, again in Hanako's voice. _"I'll give you a five-second head start!"_

We didn't need that long.

"We must flee!" Iku cried.

I was already on it, sweeping Satsuki up into my arms. "Mokou, take Keine and run! We'll fight them another day!"

"Grrr… fine!" she growled, picking up Keine. "You better not die, or I won't be able to pay you back for this."

"Never mind that, just go!"

We split up, Mokou taking off towards one of the mountains, with me and Iku flying down through the valley.

"Onii-san, what's going on? How could you do all those things? Who were those people? And why are you able to fly?"

"I'm sorry, Satsuki-chan, but I can't explain everything yet. For now, we need to get out of here."

"Follow the valley, and you will reach the mansion of the Scarlet Devil," Iku informed me. "Take shelter there. We shall meet once again when the situation has settled. I must flee to the Dragon Palace. They will not harm anyone there, but you two, as humans, cannot follow me. I am sorry."

I nodded. "Don't worry about it. Hope we'll meet again soon."

She returned the nod. "The best of luck to you."

At that, she shot off towards the sky, heading off to a place only she knew about.

I gritted my teeth. This was going to be difficult.

I glanced back once, and immediately wished I hadn't.

Rumia, Cirno, and Wriggle were all chasing me. They were out for blood.

"You cannot escape!" Rumia shouted.

She swung her sword, and a wave of black energy blasted out.

_Whoa!_

I swerved to one side, allowing the projectile to fly past me. That was close!

Without looking back, I began taking an erratic flight pattern, swerving back and forth, left and right, in an attempt to make myself a more difficult target. It seemed to be working; dark waves and cannonball-sized blasts of ice courtesy of Cirno were flying by without so much as touching me. But it was all for naught; an energy wave cut into my legs once, and an ice blast crashed into my side, nearly knocking me towards the ground.

But as I continued to flee, I could see it; the lake. It was off in the distance!

My face began to glow with relief and happiness. "Satsuki-chan, look! It's the Scarlet Devil Mansion. We're almost there!"

"Faster, onii-san!" she urged. She didn't need to; I was already putting as much speed as I possibly could into my flight.

But… something felt wrong. My limbs were becoming exhausted. The places where the wave and ice blast had struck were feeling numb, and the rest of me was almost ready to drop.

No… I was so close... what was happening?

"Onii-san, is something wrong?" Satsuki asked.

"I… don't know…. I just feel… really tired…."

I glanced at my arms, and understood.

Several tiny black bugs had latched onto my skin, and they were biting into me, sapping away my strength. All this time, I had been watching for the first and second but not the third.

Goddamnit all….

_No… _ I suddenly thought. _I need to keep Satsuki safe!_

Determination seized my body, refusing to allow a simple oversight get in the way of me keeping this child from harm. My teeth clenched, and I pushed myself to fly even faster.

We were over the lake now.

KRRSH!

"Agh!"

"Onii-san!"

Burning cold was plastered all over my leg, icy daggers stabbing where the blast had hit.

_I can't… stop now…._

Suddenly, my body was nearly ripped in half, shocks of agony tearing into me as a wave of energy cut into my midsection.

"AAAH!"

"No!" Satsuki screamed, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks as she pulled on my jacket. "Onii-san, don't die! We're almost there!"

_Just a… little more…._

We were over the island.

KRISH!

Another hit collided with my back.

I couldn't take anymore. And began to fall.

PO-KSSSSSH!

I hit the floor. Hard. And tumbled for a good distance before finally sliding to a stop. Before impact, I had completely wrapped my body around Satsuki, shielding her from the unforgiving earth.

We lay still.

With great effort, I raised my head slightly.

The gate was there, only a few steps away.

No… we were so close….

"It's the end of the line."

Goddamnit.

I looked back, barely able to sit up. The three were already there, nightmare incarnates about to consume me completely.

I hugged Satsuki a little more tightly.

Cirno came forward first, her right hand shining white-blue with icy energy.

"Don't worry; I'll make sure you don't feel how cold it is when I freeze you solid!"

She lunged.

And was suddenly blasted back, struck by a bullet of white wind.

She went flying, tumbling between her two comrades, whose eyes were wide with shock.

"I step outside of my library to find this? I'm sorry, but you are not to harm this boy and girl."

"You're on Scarlet Devil Mansion grounds now. Leave, or be destroyed."

Two feet stepped into my vision, one with a pink slipper, a long purple robe, and purple aura, the other with a black shoe, a white pant leg, and a white aura.

I almost couldn't bring the words to my lips.

"Patchouli… sama… Meiling-san…."

"No one deprives us of our prey!" Rumia cried. The remaining two charged.

The youkai of darkness was blasted back by another wind bullet, but Wriggle continued to charge, meeting Meiling halfway. The former threw out a few punches, but they were dodged easily.

The counterattack was incredible; with unmatched strength and speed, Meiling rained blows upon the firefly like an avalanche, fists enveloped in chi moving almost too fast to see. I couldn't even count how many times she struck before finally ending, only to finish off her opponent with something stronger: a spell card.

"_レゾナンスとリング、色と風の鐘! __Colorful Sign: Colorful Windchime!"_

Meiling began to spin, a whirlwind of rainbow wrapping itself around her. The funnel cloud tore into Wriggle with unrelenting force, battering her with a storm of chi.

"Aaagh!"

The moment her feet touched back onto the floor, Meiling smashed her enemy with two palms to the chest. Blue explosions blasted out, knocking Wriggle out of the battle, and out cold.

Rumia was being kept rather busy with Patchouli raining arcane destruction upon her, dodging back and forth between the barrages of spells: water pillars, wind blasts, silver swords. She held nothing back.

"Annoying witch!" Rumia spat. How do you like this?"

She slashed the air twice, sending two energy waves arcing out in the shape of a cross. Any spells that hit them were cut through on the spot.

But they were too slow; Meiling dashed in front, waving her hands in a giant circle in front of her with strange slowness. A shield of rainbow chi was conjured, soaking the two deadly waves with not so much as a bend in its form.

"You shall not harm her!" she declared, gathering the rainbow shield into a single white ball and blasting it out. But she wasn't done; just as the projectile went flying out, Meiling stomped the ground, and went flying herself, leaping into a kick with her leg wrapped in a rainbow silhouette in the shape of a dragon's head.

Rumia dodged, stepping out of the way of the projectile and into a foot to the face.

Before she could even start flying back, Meiling's other leg swung upward, crashing down upon her target with incredible speed and smashing her into the ground. By the time she herself landed, a second card was in her hands.

"_私は私の敵を殺すことができるので、山々のロックは、私の拳を祝福! __Fiery Attack: Roc…."_

Her hands swung down, unleashing a blast of chi in front of her. Rumia was stunned, unable to move.

The martial artist turned and rammed backwards, sending her enemy up into the air. Her fist clenched tightly as an immense amount of energy began to build within it.

"_Killing Fist!"_

Just as her enemy dropped in range, she punched upward.

BA-KOOOM!

The blast could have lit up the world; rainbow energy radiated out with a vengeance, as if intending to crack the earth itself under its destructive power.

Rumia didn't stand a chance; she was sent flying so fast at such great velocity that she had surely landed in the lake.

"Argh! I'll kill you bastards!"

From the air dived an enraged ice fairy, sword in one hand and the other charged with power. Her off-hand formed a large iceberg, and chucked it at me.

Patchouli countered with a quick blast of wind, shattering the ice as if it were glass. She backed up a step, making sure that she was almost standing on top of me and Satsuki.

Cirno howled with rage, preparing to bring a crushing blow down upon all three of us. Meiling was too far now, and couldn't counter in time.

But Patchouli already had a card ready.

"_最も地球からもたらされた保護の柱は、発生! __Earth Metal Sign: Emerald Megalopolis!"_

She dropped the card into the floor, and waited. Cirno was ten meters away… five….

Patchouli waved her hand.

BOOM!

A circle of emerald pillars burst from the ground, shooting upward in a protective circle around the three of us. The one directly in front was perfectly positioned, a massive green fist punching into the ice fairy and bouncing her over our heads.

Yet it was not quite over; the sound of breaking earth indicated the spawning of several more layers, surrounding us in a veritable fortress of hardened gems that could be assailed from no direction but up. Twice more, the pillars smashed Cirno, as if playing a game of skipping a rock over water, only ending when a loud thud was heard from a body hitting the floor.

One by one, the circles of pillars began to recede from the inside out, dropping back into the earth with a steady rumbling. The moment the pillar was completely under ground level, the earth immediately above it stitched itself back together, leaving no trace that it had ever been there at all.

Once the last circle had gone down, it became obvious where Cirno had landed; just past the gate, face down, immobile.

Just like that, it was all over.

Meiling had walked back over, and together, the two regarded the ice fairy's unmoving body with a strange dispassion.

Then, Meiling opened the gate.

"_That_ is the power of the Scarlet Devil Mansion!" Meiling declared, plucking the fairy off the ground and hurling her off into the night to join the firefly.

With little more than several thuds and some rustled bushes, Cirno disappeared.

Wow….

That had been… amazing….

_Fwump!_

"Kaito-kun! Kaito-kun, wake up!"

"Kaito-san! You have reached your destination, do not die on us now!"

"Onii-san! ONII-SAAAN!"

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_

* The treasured sword shall cut down the enemies of the king!

** Slumber in this horrid sepulchre of merciful ice!

*** Flames of Hell, cremate mine enemies in a cage of fire!

**** Insects of luminescence, gather together to raze my enemy!

***** O Sun God, grant me protection for a single moment!

****** Grand dragon of lightning, shield me within your walls!

******* O, spirits of thunder, augment my blade to obliterate my adversary!

******** Ring with resonance, the bell of color and wind!

********* Roc of the mounains, bless my fists so I may slay my enemy!

********** Pillars of protection wrought from the hardest earth, arise!

11k words. I managed to overshoot my target of 10k by a fair margin. This is officially my absolute longest chapter up to this point.

And it feels _**amazing!**_

Holy shit, I can't believe I managed to do this. A lot goes on in this one chapter, but I pulled it all together into a single glop of everything I could possibly muster. This, this is my _magnum opus_. I can only _dream_ of pulling something like this in the future.

Yet now that I've set such a bar, I wonder if I'll be able to pull it off again. That's going to be really hard... but I'll worry more about it in the future. For now, I'm going to kick back, play some League of Legends, maybe read some Homestuck, and rest up for tomorrow morning, because I'm gonna be heading out for some more training with my brand new bokuto at 6:00~ (yes, it's going to be on a school day)

But enough of that, on to some real notes...

So... many... flashbacks and references. I had to pull so many lines from past chapters, it's not even funny. On top of that, the Tales Of series and Final Fantasy seriously take the cake in this chapter (to the point where I will say here that all used moves that originate from either the Tales Of series or Final Fantasy are property of Namco and SquareEnix respectively). I honestly believe that it's a shame Mokou doesn't have more fire-based moves, which is why I gave her a new one (Jade, I'm sorry). Of my three options, Flame Burst lacked power, and Explode was too simple, so I went with the best choice there. Also, Frigid Coffin was just far too cool to pass up, so I put that in too. Haha, I even used the same incantations from in-game for this. How's _that_ for ripping off an original game?

The _Electro Blitz_ card was intended to look different; instead of using the Slice&Dice move, it was supposed to be Blitz Ace. However, all things considered, using Tidus' ultimate Overdrive _and_ his EX Burst from Dissidia was simply too overpowered, to I dropped it in power level to something more reasonable. Two of my other cards, however, are going to be straight steals from two EX Bursts in Dissidia. You'll find out later.

I officially love Danbooru now. Sure, its advertisements... leave much to be desired (like being not-so-lewd) but on the other hand, some of the pictures there are simply far too amazing to ignore. Case in point, the many EX-forms of the six characters were all inspired by a single, very aptly named pool on the site called Touhou - Extra Stage Bosses. Look it up (though NSFW warning on that, though if you've been to the site before then you already know). Rumia in particular gets special mention for taking up maybe 20-30% of the pool all by herself.

That's all I have to say. Hope you enjoyed this chapter~

EDIT: Ahaha, I forgot to mention something; the Latin used in this chapter is not accurate, as I was unable to get in contact with egyptianpanda concerning the incantations, so the ones currently written are all from the dreaded Google Translate. On the other hand, Patcheresu was able to help me out a bit by correcting a small error in one of the cards, so my thanks go out to him/her. I really need to start learning Latin soon, so I can actually do this myself, but that's not happening for a while, so my apologies.


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